3fl   fi73 


LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


c  i  i  F~  r  (  >  K 


Received 
Accession  No  . 


,  189 

Cla*s  No. 


MEMORIAL 


OF 


FREDERICK      DOUGLASS 


' 


MEMORIAL 


FREDERICK     DOUGLASS 


FROM     THE 


CITY    OF    BOSTON 


BOSTON 
PRINTED    BY    ORDER    OF    THE    CITY    COUNCIL 

MDCCCXCVI 


BOSTON 


C I T  Y     O  F     B  O  S  T  O  N . 


IN    COMMON    COUNCIL,    December   26,    1895. 

Ordered,  That  the  Clerk  of  Committees,  under  the  direction  of  the  Com 
mittee  on  Printing,  be  directed  to  prepare  and  publish  an  edition  of  one 
thousand  copies  of  a  volume  containing  an  account  of  the  memorial  services 
in  honor  of  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS  ;  the  expense  attending  the  same  to  be 
charged  to  the  appropriation  for  City  Council,  Incidental  Expenses. 

Passed.  Sent  down  for  concurrence.  December  30,  came  up  concurred. 
Approved  by  the  Acting  Mayor,  January  1,  1896. 

A  true   copy. 

Attest : 

JOHN   M.    GALVIN, 

City    Clerk. 


CONTENTS 


DEATH   OF   FREDERICK   DOUGLASS    ......  11 

ACTION   OF   THE   CITY   COUNCIL        .                  ....  15 

MEMORIAL    SERVICES                    .......  19-23 

THE   EULOGY      .                  .                                                               .  27-67 

PERSONAL   REMINISCENCES          .......  71-90 

FINAL  PROCEEDINGS  93-94 


DEATH    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS 


DEATH    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 


FREDERICK  DOUGLASS  died  at  his  home  in  Washington, 
D.C.,  on  Anacosta  Hill,  just  across  the  eastern  branch  of 
the  Potomac  River  from  Capitol  Hill,  on  the  evening  of 
the  twentieth  of  February,  1895.  The  immediate  cause 
of  his  death  was  heart  failure. 


ACTION    OF    THE    CITY    COUNCIL 


ACTION    OF    THE    CITY    COUNCIL. 


ON  the  twenty-first  of  March,  Mr.  STANLKY  Ri  FFIN,  of 
Ward  (.>,  offered  the  following  order : 

Ordered,  That  a  committee  of  five,  with  such  as  the 
Board  of  Aldermen  may  join,  be  empowered  to  make 
arrangements  for  a  public  memorial  in  honor  of  the  late 
Hon.  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS  ;  the  expense  attendant  on 
the  same  to  be  charged  to  the  Contingent  Fund  of  the 
City  Council. 

The  order  was  concurred  in  by  the  Board  of  Aldermen 
April  first,  and  approved  by  the  Mayor  April  third. 

The  following-named  members  were  appointed  upon  the 
Committee,  viz.  :  Aldermen  HORACE  (r.  ALLEN,  JOHN  II.  LEE, 
and  KDWARD  Y\  .  PKKSIIO,  Councilmen  STANLEY  RIFFLN, 
MICHAEL  T.  CALLAHAN,  MICHAEL  E.  GADDIS,  CHARLES  II. 
HALL,  and  J.  HENDERSON  ALLSTON. 


MEMORIAL    SERVICES 


MEMORIAL    SERVICES. 


THE  Committee  of  Arrangements  did  not  progress  sufli- 
cicntly  in  their  preparations  to  enable  them  to  bold  the 
memorial  services  prior  to  the  summer  vacation,  and  conse 
quently  were  compelled  to  defer  them  until  fall.  Thev  suc 
ceeded  in  securing  the  services  of  Hon.  ALHIOX  W.  TOIKGEK, 
as  eulogist,  a  gentleman  who,  on  account  of  his  fine  literary 
attainments  and  intimate  acquaintance  with  DOUGLASS,  was 
peculiarly  well  tilted  for  the  duty.  It  was  decided  to  hold 
the  service  in  Fancuil  Hall  on  the  evening  of  December 
twentieth.  Mr.  RICIIAHD  T.  GREENER,  a  long-time  friend  of 
DOI'GLASS,  accepted  an  invitation  from  the  Committee  to  o'ive 
some  personal  reminiscences  of  DOUGLASS,  and  the  Dumas 
Male  Quartet  was  engaged  to  furnish  music  for  the  occasion. 

Invitations  were  sent  to  the  Mayor,  City  Council,  and  City 
officials,  to  members  of  the  D.OUGLASS  family,  the  survivors  of 
the  old  Anti-Slavery  Society,  and  to  many  prominent  colored 
people  in  Boston  and  vicinity. 

The  weather  was  propitious,  and  the  hall  was  well  tilled 
with  interested  auditors.  At  the  appointed  time  Chairman 
ALLEX,  of  the  Committee,  took  the  chair,  and  the  exercises 
commenced  with  singing  by  the  quartet  ''Day  Slowly  Declin 
ing."  The  Chairman  then  made  the  following  introductory 
remarks  : 


20  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

REMARKS    OF    ALDERMAN    ALLEN. 

LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN, — We  are  assembled  to-night, 
at  the  invitation  of  the  City  of  Boston,  to  pay  a  tribute 
of  respect  to  the  life  and  character  of  FREDERICK  DOUG 
LASS.  Eminence  in  any  walk  of  life  may  well  be 
commended,  and  in  all  cases  should  be  appreciated  and 
fittingly  recognized  ;  but  it  is  particularly  commendable 
where  the  goal  has  been  reached  after  a  terrible  struggle 
and  in  the  face  of  such  difficulties  as  beset  Mr.  DOUGLASS. 
Born  a  slave,  in  actual  want  for  food,  cruelly  treated,  no 
one  interested  in  him  save  with  the  interest  of  an  owner 
for  a  growing  chattel,  he  yet,  by  perseverance,  upright 
life,  and  broad-mindedness,  became,  I  may  safely  say,  the 
most  eminent  man  of  his  race  during  the  latter  years  of 
his  life. 

It  seems  also  particularly  appropriate  that  this  service 
should  be  held  in  Faneuil  Hall,  Boston,  pregnant  as  it  is 
with  historical  incidents  so  important  to  the  race  to 
which  he  belonged,  in  whose  behalf  these  walls  have 
echoed  the  stirring  utterances  of  a  PHILLIPS  and  a  GAR 
RISON,  and  of  many  another  earnest  and  intelligent 
worker  for  freedom,  for  common  humanity,  and  common 
mankind. 

I  will  ask  Rev.  Mr.  ROBERTS  to  open  the  meeting  with 
prayer. 

PRAYER     BY    REY.    I).    ]».    ROBERTS. 

0  Thou  Holy  One,  Thou  who  art  the  Author  of  all 
being,  the  Life  of  all  existence,  the  Spirituality  of  all 
spirit,  and  the  Thought  of  all  thinking,  Thou  High  and 


MEMORIAL    SERVICES.  21 

Holy  One,  who  inhabiteth  not  only  temples  made  with 
hands,  but  who  inhabiteth  eternity,  we  recognize  in  Thee 
the  Source  of  our  being,  the  Spring  of  all  our  delights, 
the  One  to  Whom  we  are  accountable  and  unto  Whom 
we  shall  render  an  account  for  our  stewardship  here 
below ;  that  One  who  presideth  not  only  over  the  des 
tinies  of  nations  and  of  worlds,  but  Who  presideth  over 
the  destinies  of  the  individual  ;  that  One  Who  hath  such 
a  tender  regard  for  the  workmanship  of  His  own  hand 
that  not  a  sparrow  falleth  to  the  ground  without  Him. 

We  thank  Thee,  Father,  that  we  again  come  into  Thy 
presence  to-night  and  in  this  service  recognize  Thee  and 
Thy  hand  that  hath  brought  us  here.  We  come,  blessed 
Father,  to  show  our  respect  to  the  memory  of  one  whom 
Thou  hast  given  to  this  generation,  to  this  century,  and 
to  the  world. 

We  thank  Thee,  blessed  Father,  to-night,  that  from 
depths  the  lowest  in  which  it  is  possible  for  Thy  creat 
ures  to  be  found  Thou  hast  made  it  possible  for  them 
to  rise.  We  thank  Thee  for  that  height  to  which  men 
may  reasonably  aspire,  that  height  to  which  by  perse 
verance,  by  energy,  and  by  fidelity,  man  may  attain. 
We  thank  Thee  for  all  that  Thou  hast  done  for  us  in 
creation,  in  giving  unto  us  this  beautiful  world  as  our 
home,  with  all  its  vast  resources  and  possibilities. 

We  thank  Thee,  our  Heavenly  Father,  for  what  Thou 
hast  done  for  us  in  Thy  Providence,  for  all  along 
through  the  ages  past  Thy  footsteps  can  be  traced  and 
Thy  handiwork  in  the  affairs  of  men  can  be  seen. 

We  thank  Thee  for  what  Thou  hast  done  for  redemp 
tion,  for  the  noble  manhood  and  divinity  Thou  hast  sent 


22  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

to  the  world  in  the  presence  of  Thy  Son,  to  teach  us 
those  lessons  of  virtue,  mercy,  and  equality,  which  God 
only  can  impress,  in  His  goodness  and  spirit,  upon  the 
heart  and  mind  of  man. 

We  thank  Thee  for  all  the  noble  characters  Thou  hast 
given  us  in  all  the  ages  of  the  past,  and  for  all  the 
noble  character  Thou  hast  given  us  in  the  presence  of 
the  person  whose  memory  we  cherish  and  whose  life  we 
honor.  We  ask  that  to-night  in  all  that  may  be  said, 
proper  and  due  regard  and  respect  may  be  shown  for 
the  memory  of  that  great  man  whose  life  and  character, 
whose  attainment  and  personality,  evidenced  the  possi 
bilities  of  that  race  from  which  he  came. 

We  ask  Thy  blessings,  Heavenly  Father,  on  this  great 
city  that  has  sought  to  do  him  this  honor  and  whose 
people  have  turned  out  here  to-night  to  show  officially 
their  regard  for  him  as  a  man,  as  an  American  citizen, 
and  as  one  of  America's  greatest  men. 

We  ask  Thy  blessings  on  his  dear  family,  and  grant, 
God,  that  we  all  live  to  emulate  his  virtues  in  our  own 
lives,  to  follow  the  example  he  has  set,  and  to  scpiare 
our  lives  with  the  rule  of  justice  he  has  laid  out  before  us. 

We  ask  all  these  blessings  in  the  name  of  Christ. 
Amen. 

At  the  close  of  the  prayer,  Ji  response,  "Amen,"  was  sunir 
by  the  quartet. 

Then  followed  a  song,  "The  Plains  of  Peace,"  sung  by  Mr. 
SIDNEY  WOODMAX.  The  Chairman  then  introduced  the  orator 
of  the  evcninir,  Hon.  ALBION  W.  ToriMJEK,  who  delivered 
the  eulogy.  He  occupied  an  hour  and  tifty  minutes,  but  was 


MEMORIAL    SERVICES.  23 

listened  to  throughout  with  unabated  interest  by  his  appre 
ciative  audience,  and  at  the  close  he  received  a  hearty  outburst 
of  applause. 

The  solo,  "  O  Rest  in  the  Lord,"  was  then  sung  by  Mr. 
HODGES,  of  the  quartet. 

The  Chairman  then  introduced  Mr.  RICHARD  T.  GRKKNKR, 
as  follows  : 

Chairman  ALLEN.  —  Mr.  TOURGEE  has  eloquently  and 
interestingly  told  us  of  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS  as  he  was 
known  to  the  world.  I  know  it  will  give  you  pleasure 
to  listen  for  a  few  moments  to  some  personal  reminis 
cences  of  Mr.  DOUGLASS  by  his  intimate  and  personal 
friend,  Prof.  RICHARD  T.  GREENER. 

Mr.  GREENER  delivered  an  eloquent  and  interesting  address, 
which  was  received  with  favor  by  the  audience  and  frequently 
applauded. 

At  the  close  of  his  remarks,  the  quartet  sang  the  part 
song  rr Lovely  Night."  The  benediction  was  then  pronounced, 
and  the  audience  dispersed. 


THE      EULOGY 


BY 


ALBION     W.     TOURGEE 


THE      EULOGY. 


THE  life  we  commemorate  to-night  was,  in  some  re 
spects,  among  the  most  remarkable  the  world  has  ever 
known.  In  sharp  and  swift  recurring  contrasts  it  has 
never  been  excelled.  In  the  distance  from  its  be^in- 

o 

ning  to  its  ending  it  has  rarely  been  equalled.  If  a 
man's  capacity  be  measured  by  what  he  achieved, 
FREDERICK  DOUGLASS  must  be  ranked  among  the  great 
men  of  a  great  day  ;  if  by  the  obstacles  overcome,  he 
must  be  accounted  among  the  greatest  of  any  time. 

HISTORICAL     PARALLEL. 

In  all  history  there  is  but  one  parallel  of  his  ca 
reer,  and  that  one  lacks  the  most  important  element. 
Twenty-five  hundred  years  ago  a  slave  so  won  upon 
his  master's  love  and  pride  that  he  was  set  free. 
The  most  cultivated  people  in  ancient  history  hung 
upon  his  words  in  admiration.  Their  philosophers  imi 
tated  his  methods ;  their  poets  parodied  his  fables.  He 
became  the  friend,  counsellor,  and  ambassador  of  the 
greatest  kini?  of  his  time.  When  he  died  Athens  voted 

O  O 

him  a  statue,  and  four  cities  claimed  the  honor  of 
being  accounted  his  birthplace.  He  is  said  to  have 
been  a  hunchback,  and  this  fact  is  always  cited  as 


28  MEMORIAL  OF  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS. 

evidence  of  his  transcendent  genius  because  of  the  added 
burthen  it  imposed.  He  had  not  only  to  overcome  the 
prejudice  attaching  to  his  station,  but  also  the  aversion 
inspired  by  his  uncouthness.  The  schoolboy  of  to-day, 
as  he  cons  this  story,  wonders  how  he  could  rise  to 
such  heights  in  the  face  of  such  obstacles,  especially 
among  a  beauty-loving  people  like  the  Athenians. 

Yet,  what  were  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  ^Esop 
compared  with  those  which  DOUGLASS  overcame  ?  What 
was  Grecian  bondage  in  comparison  with  American  slav 
ery  ?  What  was  ^Esop's  hump  when  compared  with 
DOUGLASS'  color,  considered  as  an  obstacle  to  personal 
success  ?  What  was  the  patronage  of  Croesus  to  the 
friendship  of  Lincoln  and  Grant,  Sumner  and  Garrison, 
Whittier  and  Phillips  -  -  and  all  the  unnumbered  host  of 
good  men  and  women  to  whom  DOUGLASS'  name  became 
a  household  word  and  in  whose  homes  he  was  a  wel 
come  guest  ?  No  slave  was  ever  before  so  potent  in  the 
counsels  of  freemen.  No  negro  ever  before  became  so 
widely  and  favorably  known  among  an  Anglo-Saxon 
people. 

CONTRASTED     WITH     ^SOP. 

jEsop  wTas  freed  from  bondage  by  the  favor  of  his 
master ;  DOUGLASS,  through  the  admiration  of  thousands 
of  dwellers  in  another  land  who  had  heard  his  voice 
and  wondered  at  his  words  while  yet  a  slave,  and  gladly 
gave  their  money  to  melt  the  shackles  of  American  bar 
barism  that  fettered  his  limbs  and  galled  his  free  spirit. 

^Esop  became  the  ambassador  of  a  sovereign,  DOUG 
LASS  the  plenipotentiary  of  two  republics. 


THE     EULOGY.  29 

Athens  gave  ^Esop  a  statue  because  of  his  wit  ; 
DOUGLASS  was  honored  because  of  the  services  he  had 
rendered  a  great  nation. 

Three  classes  of  the  American  people  are  under  spe 
cial  obligations  to  him  :  the  colored  bondman  whom  he 
helped  to  free  from  the  chains  which  he  himself  had 
worn ;  the  free  persons  of  color  whom  he  helped  to 
make  citizens;  the  white  people  of  the  United  States 
whom  he  sought  to  free  from  the  bondage  of  caste  and 
relieve  from  the  odium  of  shivery. 

As  it  was  meet  that  Athens,  the  home  of  wit,  should 
vote  ^Esop,  the  most  illustrious  of  ancient  slaves,  a 
statue  when  he  died,  so  it  is  most  fit,  that  "  in  the 
cradle  of  liberty,"  his  life  should  be  commemorated  who 
while  yet  a  slave  became  renowned  throughout  the  world 
as  a  champion  of  freedom.  Every  citizen  of  the  United 
States  is  a  debtor  to  his  memory  ;  —  every  colored  man 
because  he  relieved  them,  by  his  admirable  exemplifica 
tion,  from  the  curse  of  incapacity  which  had  been  put 
upon  them,  as  an  excuse  for  slavery ;  and  every  white 
man  because  he  did  so  much  to  take  away  the  shame 
that  rested  on  the  Republic.  The  material  ills  of  slavery 
affected  chiefly  the  colored  race;  its  moral  blight 
was  shared  by  the  white  people  of  the  country  as  well. 
The  wrongs  of  slavery  attached  to  the  colored  man ;  its 
shame  rested  wholly  with  the  white  man.  So  the 
obligation  of  gratitude  for  its  extinction  is  not  a  one 
sided  matter,  and  it  is  -  especially  appropriate  that  Bos 
ton,  the  birthplace  of  two  great  revolutions  for  the 
promotion  of  liberty,  should  be  the  first  American  city 
to  do  honor  to  a  colored  man  for  his  services  to  the 


30  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

nation    which    had    condemned    him    and    his    people    to 
hopeless    bondage. 

The  chief  merit  that  attaches  to  the  people  of  the 
North  in  the  great  conflict  in  which  slavery  perished, 
consisted  not  in  the  fact  that  we  fought  for  the  Federal 
Union  or  resisted  its  disruption ;  but  in  the  far  nobler 
fact  that  we  fought  for  liberty --the  liberty  of  a  poor, 
weak,  despised  people.  The  tramp  of  our  legions  was  in 
tune  with  that  most  glorious  of  national  anthems  : 

"  As  He  died  to  make  men  holy, 
Let  US  die  to  make  men  FREE  !  " 

So,  too,  the  slave  who  fought  for  his  own  freedom, 
in  the  field  or  in  that  great  conflict  that  came  before 
the  sword  was  drawn,  fought  also  to  take  away  the 
shame  of  the  oppressor.  He  who  fights  for  his  own 
liberty  is  a  hero ;  he  who  strikes  a  blow  for  another's 
rights  is  the  brother  of  Him  who  died  for  man,  and 
fit  to  wear  Excalibar. 

A     FIRST     MEETING. 

Some  forty  years  ago  a  country  lad  sat  in  an  audience 
which  an  orator  was  addressing  in  impassioned  tones,  on 
an  unpopular  theme.  The  speaker  was  in  the  prime  of 
manhood.  His  dark  cheek  flushed,  his  eyes  flashed ;  his 
lithe  but  powerful  frame  swayed  with  the  force  of  his 
emotion  as  he  denounced  wrong  and  pleaded  for  justice. 
Suddenly  one  of  the  shafts  of  his  denunciation  struck 
deeper  than  the  others.  There  was  a  murmur  of  dis 
approval  swelling  to  an  angry  roar,  and  then  a  storm 
of  groans  and  hisses.  From  the  neighborhood  of  the 


THE    EULOGY.  31 

youngster  an  egg  was  thrown  which  struck  the  speaker 
on  the  shoulder.  Other  missiles  were  thrown  also,  but 
this  one  splashed  up  on  his  long  wavy  hair  and  left 
yellow  streaks  on  his  black  beard  and  mustache.  There 
was  an  instant's  hush  broken  only  by  the  bov's  lauiHi. 

*J  v  *J  O 

Then  for  half  an  hour  that  audience  were  thrilled  and 
hushed  to  breathless  silence,  by  an  overwhelming  tide  of 
denunciatory  eloquence  rarely  equalled  in  any  age  or  by 
any  orator.  The  speaker  evidently  thought  the  young 
ster  who  laughed  had  been  guilty  of  the  offence.  Others 
thought  so,  too.  It  is  not  the  first  time  a  laugh  has 
condemned  the  innocent.  The  next  morning  the  young 
man  called  upon  the  orator  to  apologize,  not  for  the 
egg,  of  which  he  was  guiltless,  but  for  the  laugh,  which 
he  regretted.  It  was  not  a  pleasant  call.  The  orator 
was  still  sore  over  the  indignity  that  had  been  offered 
him.  The  affront  was  one  apologies  could  not  cure. 
He  told  the  wondering  boy  a  furious  tale  of  insults 
he  had  suffered  because  he  was  a  colored  man  pleading 
for  justice  to  his  people.  The  interview  ended  peace 
fully,  however,  as  if  in  apology  for  its  rough  beginning. 

A    PLEASANT    ACQUAINTANCE. 

This  was  my  first  meeting  with  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS. 
It  was  the  beginning  of  a  pleasant  but  desultory 
acquaintance.  When  we  next  met,  the  flood  of  battle 
had  swept  away  the  legal  estate  of  slavery.  I  was  a 
dweller  in  a  southern  state,  he  was  my  guest.  Around 
us  were  scattered  the  fragments  of  a  disrupted  social 
and  economic  system  —  a  slave-civilization  to  which 
men  were  trying  to  fit  the  garments  of  liberty.  The 


32          MEMORIAL  OF  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS. 

result  was  grotesque  —  it  is  still  grotesque.  Wise  theo 
rists  made  it  a  scarecrow,  and  those  who  had  little 
comprehension  either  of  liberty  or  justice  as  the  heritage 
of  the  colored  man,  have  shred  away  the  patches  and 
left  it  a  ghastly  skeleton.  He  was  seeking  in  wonder 
and  amaze  to  penetrate  the  future  and  read  the  destiny 
of  his  people.  He  had  known  two  phases  of  American 
life  in  the  slave-republic  —  the  slave-life  into  which  he 
was  born  ;  the  free  life  to  which  he  had  fled.  How  to 
reconcile  the  fragments  of  the  one  with  the  triumphant 
confidence  of  the  other  was  the  problem  that  confronted 
all.  He  knew  what  had  been  in  the  old  slave-epoch ; 
the  young  man  realized  more  keenly,  perhaps,  the  char 
acter  of  the  new  one.  Neither  was  confident  of  what 
would  be.  From  that  time  until  just  before  his  death, 
we  met  occasionally  as  our  paths  crossed,  here  and  there. 
Our  acquaintance  was  always  candid,  earnest,  thoughtful 
-never  continuous  or  intimate.  I  shall  speak  of  him 
to-night,  therefore,  not  as  one  having  special  knowledge 
of  those  qualities  which  appear  only  in  personal  relations, 
but  as  a  public  man  in  his  relations  to  the  epoch  in 
which  he  lived,  the  institution  he  helped  to  overthrow, 
the  race  whose  obloquy  he  bore,  the  nation  he  helped 
to  redeem  from  ignominy,  and  the  people  whose  destiny 
he  left  unsolved.  I  shall  consider  only  the  man  whom 
the  world  knows,  in  the  light  the  future  must  regard 
him. 

THE    THOUGHT    THAT    UNDERLIES    A    LIFE. 

Emerson  has  noted  the  value  of  the  man  who  stands 
behind  a  thought.  There  is  also  a  value  to  be  esti 
mated  of  the  thought  that  lies  back  of  a  man's  life. 


THE    EULOGY.  33 

Every  man  is,  in  a  sense,  chameleonic.  He  gives  back, 
more  or  less  clearly,  the  color  of  his  day.  If  he  is 
careful  only  of  his  own  comfort  or  seeks  only  his  own 
advantage,  he  reflects  but  little  of  the  life  which  is 
the  light  of  his  world.  Its  rays  fall  upon  him  and 
glance  off  without  any  added  flash  or  fresh  throb  of 
interest.  If,  however,  its  glare  enters  his  soul,  fires  his 
brain,  and  animates  his  being,  he  becomes  transparent, 
like  the  little  creature  whose  flesh  absorbs  the  sunshine 
so  that  we  see  his  heart-beats  through  the  glowing  walls. 
This  was  true  in  an  especial  manner  of  the  man  we 
are  assembled  to  commemorate.  The  thought  of  his 
epoch  was  his  thought  —  he  had  little  outside  of  or 
beyond  it.  From  the  past  he  had  received  only  life 
as  his  inheritance.  His  present  had  nothing  to  offer 
but  one  dominant,  controlling  idea.  This  entered  his 
soul  and  filled  it.  No  wonder :  the  thought  of  his 
time  was  of  himself  —  himself  and  his  fellows  and 
liberty  —  their  relations  to  the  dominant  class  in  the 
land  of  his  birth,  to  the  State,  to  the  government, 
to  Christianity,  to  God.  In  the  church,  on  the  ros 
trum,  in  the  Congress,  in  the  Legislatures  of  the 
country,  in  the  city  mart,  and  in  the  country  store  — 
wherever  men  were  assembled  —  the  one  object  of  all- 
absorbing  interest  was  the  colored  man,  his  character, 
qualities,  capacity,  and  the  relations  which  God  and 
nature  designed  that  he  should  hold  to  his  fellow-mortals 
of  a  lighter  hue.  In  a  sense,  this  was  no  new  question. 
The  only  new  thing  about  it  was  that  there  were  those 
who  contended  that  the  theory  which  had  so  long 
prevailed  in  regard  to  it  was  not  the  true  one ;  that 


34          MEMORIAL  OF  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS. 

the  wisdom  of  the  ages  was  not  only  incorrect,  but 
that  its  conclusions  were  incontestibly  based  on  false 
premises. 

SLAVERY    AND    CIVILIZATION. 

Four  hundred  years  before,  Prince  Henry,  of  Portugal, 
the  grandson  of  that  English  John  of  Gaunt  whose  blood 
flows  in  the  veins  of  every  monarch  of  to-day,  received 
a  grant  from  the  Roman  Pontiff  authorizing  him,  among 
other  things,  to  seize  and  hold  in  captivity  as  many  as 
he  saw  fit  of  the  black  heathen  who  inhabited  the 
region  which  lay  beyond  the  terrible  Cape  Non,  which 
his  caravels  had  finally  passed  in  safety,  in  order  that 
they  might  be  taught  the  principles  of  the  Christian 
faith  and,  by  and  by,  be  sent  back  to  win  over  that 
realm  of  marvel  and  mystery,  the  "  Land  of  the  Black 
amoors,"  to  the  religion  of  Christ  and  obedience  to  Mother 
Church.  The  Father  of  Discovery  —  the  man  whose  labor 
and  learning,  patience  and  devotion,  made  Columbus  a 
possibility  —  was,  also,  the  father  of  African  slavery, 
made  such  by  his  zeal  for  the  religion  of  which  he  was 
a  sincere  and  faithful  devotee. 

From  that  time  forward,  the  Church,  almost  regardless 
of  name  or  sect,  was  the  guardian  and  protectress  of 
the  traffic  in  human  bodies ;  all  the  time  with  the 
professed  purpose  of  saving  human  souls.  It  came  at 
length  to  be  the  accepted  theory  that  the  mystery  of 
redemption  for  Africa  lay  in  the  forced  migration  of 
the  Negro  to  the  slave-republic  of  the  New  \Vorld, 
whence,  after  a  time,  he  was  to  be  returned,  Chris 
tianized  and  outworn,  to  carry  the  gospel  absorbed  in 


THE    EULOGY.  '.}.) 

bondage,  taught  by  enforced  adultery,  and  exemplified 
by  wholesale  robbery  and  inconceivable  oppression,  to 
enlighten  the  spiritual  darkness  of  Africa.  Even  yet 
the  pulpit  echoes  with  soul-cheering  explications  of  the 
divine  mystery  by  which  the  supernumerary  African  in 
our  land  is  to  be  driven  across  the  sea,  to  hold  up  the 
banner  of  the  Cross  and  bring  the  knowledge  of  the 
religion  of  justice  and  love  to  them  that  sit  in  darkness, 
leaving  this  land  of  liberty  to  the  exclusive  enjoyment 
of  those  for  whom  it  was  created  and  on  whom  it  was 
divinely  bestowed  —  the  white  men,  who  are  openly  or 
itnpliedly  proclaimed  the  worthiest  and  most  favored  sons 
of  God. 

The  doctrine  seems  a  little  strange  to-day.  When 
FREDERICK  DOUGLASS  was  born,  it  was  a  universally 
accepted  truth  which  was  stamped  upon  his  soul  in 
the  very  instant  that  he  drew  the  breath  of  life.  It 
was  a  slave's  breath  —  the  first  of  a  caste-cursed  life ! 
The  religious  and  political  world  have  swung  forward 
into  a  new  realm  of  spirituality  and  justice,  largely 
through  his  efforts  and  the  effect  of  his  exemplifi 
cation  of  the  wrong  and  shame  of  the  past.  We  might 
have  endured  the  wrong  which  others  suffered,  but 
the  shame  we  had  ourselves  to  bear  was  too  much 
for  a  sensitive  people  to  endure.  For  the  Yankee  is 
the  most  sensitive  type  of  humanity;  consequently  the 
most  chameleonic.  He  changes  quicker  and  oftener  than 
any  other  people  in  the  world's  history;  is  sincerely 
grateful  as  each  Thanksgiving  Day  comes  round  that  he 
is  not  as  he  was ;  but  has  not  even  yet  learned  to 
openly  thank  God  for  the  fact  that  he  is  white.  Yet, 


;j()  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

next  to  life  and  health  a  white  skin  is  the  greatest 
blessing  that  has  been  enjoyed  on  American  soil  since  the 
Dutch  lugger  landed  the  first  dusky  cargo  at  Jamestown. 
We  are  destined  some  time  to  be  as  ashamed  of  caste 
based  on  color,  as  we  are  now  ashamed  of  slavery  based 
on  caste.  Whether  it  will  require  two  centuries  and  a 
half  to  overthrow  this  monster,  as  it  did  destroy  its 
fellow,  Heaven  only  knows. 

HIS      INHERITANCE. 

Three-quarters  of  a  century  ago,  or  thereabouts,  the 
child  who  grew  to  be  the  man  we  call  FREDERICK 
DOUGLASS  was  born  on  a  Maryland  plantation.  He  never 
knew  the  date.  Years  afterward  he  said,  "  I  am  seven 
teen  ; "  and  on  that  assumption  counted  the  future  mile-, 
stones  of  his  life.  Slavery  had  robbed  him  even  of  a 
birthday. 

Who  was  his  father?  None  knew.  The  law  forbade 
marriage  to  such  as  his  mother  was.  Marriage  is  a 
contract  ;  and  the  slave  could  make  no  contract.  Such 
was  the  law  !  A  slave  could  have  no  will,  no  power  of 
self-disposition,  no  right  of  person  or  possession.  So  this 
child  had  no  father  and  no  name.  The  law  of  a  Christian 
land  denied  to  him  a  legal  name  as  well  as  legal  parentage. 
Among  the  millions  of  slaves  there  was  not  a  single  hus 
band  ;  not  a  legal  wife  ;  not  a  parent  who  had  a  parent's 
right;  not  a  child  who  could  inherit  a  father's  name.  Jim, 
or  Jack,  or  Joe  was  all  the  appellation  a,  slave  could  bear. 
A  name  imputed  family;  and  Christian  civilization  denied 
the  family  relation  to  the  slave.  "Marriage  cannot  exist 
between  slaves"  was  the  deliberate  judgment  of  the 


TIIK    KL'LOGV.  37 

Supreme  Court  of  every  slave-state.  This  was  M  child 
to  whom  the  past  gave  only  life  ;  to  whom  the  present 
brought  only  such  joys  as  come  with  health  and  sense; 
to  whom  the  future  offered  —  nothing.  He  was  a  slave, 
whom  the  law  defines  as  "a  person  without  rights;"  whom 
reason  defines  as  a  human  being  deprived  of  selfhood, 
opportunity,  hope,  and  ambition  (which  is  based  on  hope) 
for  the  profit  and  pleasure  of  another.  The  law  decreed 
that  this  child  should  never  have  a  name,  a  home,  a  wife, 
a  child;  should  never  learn  to  read  or  write;  should  never 
speak  to  one  of  the  dominant  race  save  hat  in  hand ; 
should  never  meet  more  than  two  of  his  fellows  for  coun 
sel  unless  a  white  man  was  present;  should  never  utter 
a  word  of  remonstrance,  or  strike  a  blow  in  self-defence 
or  for  another's  rights,  against  a  man  with  a  white  skin  1 
We  shudder  at  such  doctrines  now.  When  this  child 
was  born,  they  were  the  almost  unquestioned  beliefs  of 
the  American  people.  No  ;  not  unquestioned.  There  were 
those  who  doubted,  some  that  feared,  and  a  few  who 
denied  that  slavery  was  either  righteous  or  divine.  But 
they  who  uttered  such  denials  were  accounted  guilty  of 
treason  and  sacrilege ;  enemies  of  country,  society,  and 
God !  This  nameless  man-child  made  himself  a  name ; 
helped  to  liberate  a  people;  was  honored  by  a  great  nation; 
and  to-night  we  meet  to  commemorate  his  virtues.  Were 
ever  so  many  miracles  crowded  into  a  single  life  ? 

A     HOPELESS     PROSPECT. 

Fate  hung  about  the  young  child's  neck  two  burdens, 
either  of  which  might  well  suffice  to  break  the  spirit 
of  the  strongest  man  -  -  he  was  a  slave,  and  bore  the 


38  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

mark  of  African  blood  in  a  nation  of  Protestant  white 
people,  boastful  of  their  liberty.  Either  of  these  cnrses 
was  enough  to  crush  hope  out  of  the  bravest  heart. 
Made  slaves  at  birth,  how  few  of  our  children  would 
break  their  fetters  !  Given  a  trace  of  color,  how  few  of 
our  greatest  men  would  ever  have  been  heard  from  !  It 
needs  something  more  than  talent,  and  learning,  and 
eloquence  to  open  the  door  of  success  to  a  colored  man, 
and  make  him  welcome  on  the  platform,  in  the  clubs, 
and  in  the  homes  of  men  who  count  their  hue  a  mark 
of  divine  and  exclusive  favor.  If,  at  the  Christmas-tide 
which  is  so  near,  the  Holiest  should  come  again,  in  hue 
and  likeness  of  a  negro,  even  if  the  heavenly  radiance 
still  shone  about  His  head,  I  fear  me  He  would  meet  a 
very  chilly  welcome  in  the  churches  and  homes  of  our 
land.  Clad  in  a  colored  integument,  there  lives  not  to-day 
a  single  man  who  could  attain  to  the  highest  eminence 
in  our  government,  or  receive  a  call  to  a  fashionable 
church,  —  no  matter  what  his  attainments  or  how  Christ- 
like  his  character !  What,  then,  shall  we  say  of  the 
prospects  of  the  young  child  about  whose  gum-tree  cradle 
the  twin  pythons  of  Slavery  and  Caste  reared  their 
horrid  heads,  twined,  and  hissed  to  drive  away  his  hope 
and  dissipate  even  the  dream  of  aspiration  ?  How  shall 
we  measure  his  success  and  estimate  his  power  ? 

I  said  he  had  neither  father  nor  mother.  Even  the 
poor  shred  of  motherhood  that  slavery  left  possible  was 
denied  him.  He  was  reared,  like  any  domestic  animal,  in 
the  manner  best  suited  to  the  master's  profit ;  as  one  of 
a  family  of  nondescripts  known  as  "  pickaninnies."  The 
dam  was  allowed  to  visit  him  now  and  then  for  his 


THE    EULOGY.  J-J9 

nutrition ;     then    wholly    excluded,    and    he    was    removed 
to  a  distance  from  her. 

Once  only,  in  the  silence  of  a  summer  night,  he  had 
a  dream  of  one  who  came  to  the  rude  pallet  where  he 
slept,  knelt  beside  him,  folded  him  in  her  arms,  and 
covered  his  face  with  tears  and  kisses,  He  knew  she 
was  his  mother,  though  he  hardly  knew  her  name,  — 
the  single  name  she  was  allowed,  —  and  would  scarce 
have  known  her  face  had  he  seen  her  by  day.  But  he 
did  not  see  her  by  day.  Long  before  the  dawn  she  lied 
in  terror  lest  she  should  not  be  able  to  repass  the  nine 
long  miles  that  lay  between  her  and  the  home  of  him 
to  whom  her  service  and  labor  was  due,  before  the  day 
should  come.  He  never  saw  her,  never  heard  her  voice 
or  felt  her  kiss  again.  Slavery  and  caste  held  him  in 
their  clutches  as  he  grew  to  man's  estate. 

J,          SLAVE-LIFE. 

His  slave-life  wras  not  remarkable.  He  changed 
masters  once  or  twice;  was  accounted  irritable,  if  not 
discontented  and  dangerous ;  tried  to  break  into  the 
Temple  of  Knowledge  and  decipher  its  mystic  scrolls; 
learned  a  trade,  and  became  a  skilled  worker.  Finally 
"the  time  came  which  he  was  wont  to  refer  in  inspired 
moments  as  his  "second  birth,"  when  he  was  born,  not 
into  liberty,  but  into  a  life  where  the  shackles  did  not 
all  the  time  chafe  his  limbs.  As  at  his  previous  birth 
he  had  not  been  allowed  a  name,  so  now,  being  without 
father  or  mother,  he  christened  himself.  It  was  no 
slight  testimony  to  his  strength  of  mind  and  pertinacity 
that  he  dared  to  plan  and  e fleet  his  escape  from  bondage 


40  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

into  that  condition  of  half-liberty  which  he  found  in 
New  England.  It  was  evidence  of  the  character  and 
quality  of  his  genius  that  the  name  he  chose  was  at 
once  strong,  distinctive,  and  pleasing.  That  another  had 
borne  it  was  no  matter ;  it  was  his  by  free  choice, 
having  all  the  names  of  the  earth  to  choose  from.  He 
did  not  seek  to  borrow  fame,  nor  exalt  himself  by 
another's  renown.  The  slave  atom  did  not  ask  a  staff 
for  his  feet,  but  a  symbol  for  his  manhood. 

Seventeen  years,  more  or  less,  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS 
was  a  slave.  Rough  fare,  enforced  toil  by  day  and 
rest  by  night,  had  ministered  to  his  bodily  develop 
ment.  Slavery  was  a  hard  mistress,  but  she  nourished 
tough  thews.  As  for  his  mind,  he  had  mastered  a 
few  letters  and  formed  a  desperate  resolution.  Trained 
in  those  arts  of  simulation  which  slavery  taught  to 
every  pupil  who  had  aptness  enough  to  learn,  he 
toiled  and  waited,  not  "  for  something  to  turn 
up"  -there  was  nothing  of  the  Micawber  in  his 
nature  —  but  for  the  door  of  opportunity  to  open  even 
the  least  before  him.  When  that  time  came,  he  fled 
through  it  to  the  protection  some  of  the  Northern 
States  tried  to  give  those  who  dwelt  within  their 
borders.  Five  years  afterwards,  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States  decided  that  such  attempted  security 
was  vain. 

American  .  slavery  was  the  greatest  crime  of  the 
ages :  first,  because  of  its  utter  hopelessness ;  and, 
second,  because  the  intelligence  and  inventiveness  of 
the  American  people  had  been  applied  to  the  refine 
ment  and  perfection  of  the  legal  relations  of  the 


THE    EULOGY.  41 

slave,  until  there  was  literally  no  chance  for  the 
palliation  or  amendment  of  his  condition.  The  State 
could  make  him  free  indeed.  This  had  been  done  in 
five  of  the  original  colonies.  That  curious  piece  of 
legislation  hy  which  slavery  was  excluded  from  the 
Northwest  Territory,  had  saved  the  whole  region  west 
of  Pennsylvania  and  east  of  the  Mississippi,  from  the 
contamination  of  its  presence,  though  even  here  it 
held  sway  over  men's  hearts  and  minds.  The  nation 
was  kept  half-free  and  half-slave  by  the  most  nicely 
adjusted  system  of  checks  and  balances  the  ingenuity 
of  man  has  ever  devised.  Slavery  being  based  on 
race  and  color,  the  presumptions  of  the  law  in  favor 
of  liberty  were  reversed  to  secure  its  perpetuity,  and 
the  teachings  of  religion  were  made  the  cloak  for 
legalized  violation  of  all  the  laws  of  God  and  nature. 
While  the  half-free  North  had  rid  herself  of  Slavery, 
Caste  held  sway  throughout  its  length  and  breadth. 
Equality  of  opportunity,  which  is  the  touchstone  of 
liberty,  was  denied  to  all  having  traces  of  colored 
blood. 

THE    ABOLITION    EPOCH. 

Almost  contemporaneous  with  the  "second  birth  "  of 
the  slave,  thereafter  for  all  time  to  be  known  as  FREDERICK 
DOUGLASS,  the  American  people  began  to  awaken  to  the 
enormity  of  that  greatest  of  all  crimes  against  God  and 
man,  American  slavery. 

The  New  •  England  Anti-Slavery  Society  had  been 
organized  five  years  before  the  foot  of  DOUGLASS  touched 
free  soil  ;  the  national  society,  a  year  or  two  later. 


42  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

Garrison  had  established  the  "  Liberator,"  and  was 
beating  it  into  the  hearts  of  men  with  palpitant 
strokes,  that  slavery  was  the  sin  of  sins,  and  crime 
of  crimes.  Phillips  had  just  dedicated  the  powers  which 
were  to  thrill  the  world,  to  the  cause  of  human 
liberty  and  righteousness.  Whittier  was  tuning  the  harp 
whose  lays  were  to  make  him  for  all  ages  the  prophet- 
poet  of  Liberty.  Birney  had  already  begun  that  career 
which  was  to  drive  him  from  his  southern  home. 
Garret  Smith  was  preaching  liberty  in  that  strange 
confusion  of  rich  metaphor,  overflowing  kindness,  and 
inconsequent  conclusion,  which  marked  him  one  of  the 
worthiest  and  strangest  of  patriots  and  philosophers. 
Elijah  Lovejoy  had  just  given  up  his  life  for  liberty,  and 
Owen,  kneeling  on  his  brother's  grave,  had  just  vowed 
eternal  war  against  Slavery.  Thousands  more,  bursting 
the  green  withes  of  prejudice,  were  pressing  forward, 
eager  to  give  life  and  strength  to  the  conflict  of  freedom. 
Boston  was  the  storm-centre,  for  here  the  fiery  heart 
of  Garrison  sent  forth  the  flaming  sheets  which  flew 
over  the  whole  land  and,  in  every  home  they  entered, 
kindled  a  fire,  which  nor  time  nor  tyranny  could  ever 
smother.  Even  yet,  thousands  of  hearts  glow  and 
flutter  in  breasts,  now  weak  and  shrivelled,  at  the 
memory  of  his  utterances.  The  ferment  had  begun 
which  was  to  culminate  in  years  of  strife  and  bloody 
expiation  —  a  struggle  not  yet  ended  ! 

DOUGLASS,    still    in    bonds,    caught    the   echoes    of    this 
conflict.       He  had    the    slave's  fear   of    beini^    thrust  back 

o 

into    the    Gehenna    from    which    he    had    fled.       He     had 
the    slave's    intuition    that    his    safety    lay    in    silence  and 


THE    EULOGY.  43 

obscurity.  For  years,  lie  looked  with  apprehension  in 
the  face  of  every  white  stranger  whom  he  met,  fearing 
he  might  bear  the  warrant  for  his  arrest  as  a  fugi 
tive.  By  night  and  by  day,  the  nightmare  of  recaption 
and  reenslavement  followed  him.  He  was  determined 
to  die  rather  than  submit.  He  had  muscles  of  iron, 
health,  and  strength.  Slavery,  harsh  mother  as  she 
was,  had  trained  him  well  for  self-support.  Should  he 
labor  in  silence,  win  enough  for  his  wants,  and  let 
obscurity  ripen  into  safety  ?  Or  should  he  risk  his  own 
liberty  to  help  bring  his  race  the  Jubilee  —  the  hour  of 
deliverance  from  bondage  —  long  prayed  for  ?  No  one 
could  have  blamed  him  if  he  had  remained  silent.  The 
hand  of  the  master  reached  to  every  corner  of  the  land. 
Some  of  the  States  remonstrated,  but  the  nation  upheld 
his  right. 

It  was  no  trivial  matter,  even  for  a  white  man,  in 
New  England  to  espouse  the  cause  of  liberty.  Society 
frowned  upon  him ;  the  pulpits  fulminated  against  him. 
On  that  first  year  of  DOUGLASS'  semi-freedom,  even  the 
Thanksgiving  sermons  in  Boston  reeked  with  denun 
ciation  of  the  crime  and  sin  of  obeying  the  scriptural 
behest  to  "  Proclaim  /  liberty  throughout  the  land  unto 
all  the  inhabitants  ^here*f ! "  American  slavery  had 
no  year  of  jubilee,  and  was  far  behind  that  Jewish 
bondage  of  twenty  centuries  before,  in  humane  and 
merciful  character.  It  not  only  pursued  the  fugitive 
slave  to  the  uttermost  borders  of  its  jurisdiction,  but 
it  persecuted  those  who  aided  him  to  escape  or  even 
claimed  for  him  the  more  tolerable  condition  of  a 
"  free  man  of  color." 


44          MEMORIAL  OF  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS. 

DOUGLASS  might,  with  general  approval,  have  re 
mained  in  obscurity,  won  a  reasonable  competence 
by  his  labor,  and  enjoyed  as  much  liberty  and  respect 
as  was  attainable  by  the  "free  person  of  color" 
anywhere  in  the  United  States.  Many  had  won  a 
precarious  liberty  in  like  manner,  and  kept  it  by 
silence.  They  were  not  to  be  blamed.  Not  only  is 
self-preservation  the  first  law  of  nature,  but  the  inher 
itance  of  slavery  does  not  incline  one  to  sacrifice  for 
others.  The  slave's  peril,  privation,  and  the  dwarfing 
effect  of  generations  of  enforced  ignorance  and  restraint 
but  poorly  fitted  the  slave  for  self-sacrifice  for  the 
good  of  others,  let  alone  the  succor  of  his  fellows. 
There  were  some  who  took  the  same  risk  and  adopted 
the  same  course  as  DOUGLASS,  but  more  who  sought 
safety  in  the  obscurity  which  soon  became  insufficient 
to  conceal  his  identity.  He  went  to  an  "  Abolition 
meeting."  He  heard  the  woes  of  the  slave  related  by 
those  who  knew  them  not,  except  through  imagination 
and  hearsay.  To  him  the  horrors  of  slavery  stood 
out  in  all  their  naked  enormity.  He  had  never  spoken 
to  an  audience  before ;  that  night  he  rose  and,  begging 
pardon  for  his  weakness,  set  forth  in  a  clearer  light 
than  any  one  present  had  ever  heard  it  told,  the 
horror  of  that  bondage  from  which  he  had  fled. 

DOUGLASS    AX    ABOLITION    ORATOR. 

Those  engaged  in  the  abolition  movement  were  earnest 
people.  They  did  not  shrink  from  the  logic  of  their 
own  teachings.  They  welcomed  the  new  worker  in 
the  struggle  they  had  undertaken  as  having  something 


THE    EULOGY.  4,1 

they  had  not — a  concrete  knowledge  more  potent  with 
average  minds  than  the  most  clearly  woven  theory. 
They  noted,  too,  the  fire  of  genius  under  his  unprepar- 
edness.  "From  night  to  night/'  said  one,  "I  watched 
the  growth  of  his  vocabulary  arid  the  fuller  play  of 
his  imagination.  It  was  marvellous  !  " 

He  was  an  orator  by  natural  inclination.  There 
was  a  rumor  that  his  father  might  have  been  one 
who  "  swayed  the  listening  Senate "  with  his  honeyed 
words.  It  matters  not  whence  it  came,  the  natural 
aptitude  cannot  be  denied,  and  the  school  where  he  was 
put  in  training  was  one  never  excelled  in  the  world's 
history.  It  was  the  golden  age  of  American  oratory  - 
its  most  earnest,  impassioned,  and  characteristic  epoch. 
Of  the  masters  of  eloquence  of  that  time  many  of 
the  most  accomplished  were  already  enlisted,  and  others 
were  being  daily  enrolled  among  the  Abolition  forces. 
No  wonder  that  DOUGLASS'  natural  powers  were  so 
swiftly  developed  that  he  was  soon  proclaimed  "  a  most 
marvellous  orator,  when  one  considers  what  the  life  was 
from  which  he  came."  Under  such  masters,  and  with 
such  a  theme,  one  must  have  been  dull  indeed  not  to 
have  felt  the  glow  of  inspiration  ! 

He  had  two  great  advantages  over  those  with  whom 
he  wrought  —  little  was  expected  of  him  by  his  first 
audiences,  and  he  was  a  living  refutation  of  the 
charge  that  his  people  were  incapable  of  civilization 
and  fit  only  for  servile  tasks. 

The  question  of  the  colored  man's  capacity  was  the 
most  important  premise  in  the  argument  which  occu 
pied  the  universal  thought.  Politics  and  religion  ; 


40          MEMORIAL  OF  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS. 

business  and  science ;  society  and  economics  —  all  were 
colored  with  the  pros  and  cons  of  this  subject.  The 
right  and  wrong  of  slavery  was  held  to  depend  upon 
it.  If  the  negro  was  incapable  of  civilization,  slavery, 
though  an  ugly  thought,  must  be  endured  for  the 
common  welfare  and  security.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
he  was  capable  of  even  approximate  attainment  with 
the  white  race,  slavery  became  at  once  a  monster  of 
too  horrible  a  mien  to  be  contemplated  with  anything 
like  forbearance  or  approval.  Volumes  were  written 
upon  the  subject.  Science  and  theology  went  hand 
and  hand  in  the  service  of  slavery.  Wrong  has  ever 
been  a  good  paymaster,  and  slavery  paid  him  who 
proclaimed  its  sanctity,  and  him  who  upheld  its  neces 
sity  alike,  with  honors  and  approval.  So  the  most 
noted  scientists  avouched  the  negro's  inferiority,  basing 
their  judgments  upon  the  curl  of  his  hair,  the  breadth  of 
his  nose,  and  the  hue  of  his  skin,  the  convolutions  of  his 
brain,  the  flatness  of  his  foot !  The  pulpit  used  these 
demonstrations  to  prove  the  wisdom  and  mercy  of  God  in 
fastening  on  the  sons  of  Hani  the  curse  of  the  drunken 
patriarch.  There  were  lots  of  loop-holes  in  the  reason 
ing  of  both ;  but  they  both  proved  what  was  wanted, 
and  were  accounted  oracles  in  their  day.  So  science  and 
religion  became  the  willing  servants  of  Slavery  and  cast 
the  cloak  of  duty  and  necessity  over  its  unutterable  in 
famies.  Everybody  who  was  of  any  consequence  formed 
and  expressed  an  opinion  on  this  engrossing  subject. 
Every  lawyer,  every  statesman,  every  politician,  every 
divine,  almost  every  man  and  woman  of  any  prominence 
in  the  land,  was  drawn  into  the  vortex  of  controversy  in 


THE    EULOGY.  4_7 

regard  to  the  negro's  capacity  for  civilization  and  the 
resulting  question  as  to  whether  he  should  be  free  or 
slave.  What  tomes  of  wasted  learning  were  put  forth  ! 
What  ingenious  theories  were  invented  to  reconcile  God's 
mercy  with  man's  depravity !  How  many  a  grandson 
would  be  glad  to-day  to  obliterate  the  evidence  of  an 
ancestor's  folly !  But  what  is  writ,  what  is  printed, 
can  never  be  recalled.  Brass  may  inelt  and  marble 
crumble,  but  printer's  ink  endureth  forever  and  ever  ! 
0  scientist !  0  bigot !  if  you  wish  to  learn  humility 
and  avoid  the  shame  of  the  world's  ridicule,  read  the 
record  of  your  predecessors  of  only  fifty  years  ago,  and 
see  how  feeble  is  the  wisdom  of  man  when  he  seeks 
to  put  bounds  to  the  mercy  and  justice  of  God  ! 
Many  a  man  in  that  day  made  swift  shipwreck  of  a 
fair  renown  in  seeking  to  wrest  God's  truth  to  the 
devil's  service.  The  vast  majority  of  the  people,  even 
of  the  North,  were  against  the  negro's  right  to  be 
free,  and  that  opposition  was  based  almost  wholly  upon 
a  profound  and  sincere  conviction  of  his  unfitness  for 
civilization  and  lack  of  capacity  for  freedom  and  self- 
direction  and  control. 

The  Attorney-General  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Massa 
chusetts,  if  I  mistake  not,  about  that  time  declared, 
perhaps  in  this  historic  hall,  that  "  one  might  as 
well  talk  about  releasing  the  wild  beasts  in  the 
Zoological  Garden  to  run  about  the  city's  streets  as 
think  of  freeing  negroes  to  prey  upon  the  wrhite  peo 
ple  of  the  country." 

Under  these  circumstances,  it  was  of  vast  importance 
to  the  Abolition  movement  to  have  one  who  in  himself 


48  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

was  an  undeniable  refutation  of  this  claim.  Nobody 
could  question  the  ability  of  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS. 
He  was  an  opponent  whom  any  man  had  need  beware 
of,  and  no  champion  of  slavery  cared  to  encounter 
him  a  second  time.  While  he  studied  carefully  the 
eloquence  of  others  and  assimilated  with  amazing  readi 
ness  the  best  thoughts  and  the  most  striking  argu 
ments  of  his  co-laborers,  they  came  forth  from  the 
laboratory  of  his  fiery  brain  essentially  modified  and 
not  seldom  greatly  improved.  From  the  first,  he  had 
the  self-possession  of  the  natural  orator.  An  audience 
inspired  him ;  interruptions  only  brought  fresh  corrus- 
cations.  His  humor  was  heightened  by  an  artful  assump 
tion  of  the  slave's  humility,  and,  scathing  as  was  his 
denunciation,  he  had  a  way  of  excusing  it  because  of  his 
race  and  lack  of  preparation,  that  somehow  deprived  it  of 
offence.  Even  insult,  he  turned  back  on  the  offender  in 
a  way  that  not  only  made  him  the  subject  of  general 
laughter,  but  not  seldom  transformed  into  the  insulter 
a  champion  and  defender.  So  he  not  only  rose  to 
the  rank  of  one  of  the  most  noted  champions  of 
liberty,  but  he  became  also  one  of  the  strongest  argu 
ments  of  all  those  who  fought  beside  him.  Within  a 
decade  he  had  become  one  of  the  most  popular  of  Abo 
lition  orators.  Many  times  he  was  listened  to  with 
patience  and  applause,  when  a  white  orator  could  hardly 
make  himself  heard  because  of  the  hisses  and  jeers  of 
unfriendly  audiences.  Yet  there  were  times  when  the 
very  reverse  was  true,  and  noble  women  showed  their 
courage  and  devotion  to  liberty,  by  gathering  around 
him  and  with  their  persons  shielding  him  from  the 


THE    EULOGY.  49 

wrath  of  mobs  whose  only  answer  to  his  irrefutable 
argument  was  the  cry,  "Kill  the  nigger!" 

For  a  dozen  years  before  the  war  of  words  grew 
silent  in  the  clash  of  arms,  it  may  be  doubted  if 
there  was  any  more  effective  speaker  in  the  Abolition 
host.  His  arguments  had  not  the  polish  of  many  others ; 
they  were  not  so  generally  reported  by  the  press,  because 
his  efforts  were  almost  always  extemporaneous  in  form, 
and  the  stenographer  was  not  then  omnipresent ;  but 
there  was  a  life,  a  fire,  a  personal  magnetism  about  him, 
which  made  even  the  most  polished  oratory  seem  weak 
and  vain  beside  his  fiery  onslaught. 

I  was  a  lad  of  a  dozen  years,  or  less,  when  I  first 
heard  him  at  a  meeting  where  some  of  the  most  elo 
quent  of  the  white  champions  of  liberty  had  also  spoken. 
On  the  way  home  a  crowd  of  thoughtful  country  people, 
of  varying  opinions,  were  discussing  what  they  had 
heard.  One  of  the  most  intelligent,  a  leader  in  his 
neighborhood,  said : 

"Well,  you  may  say  what  you  please  about  the  others; 
the  'nigger'  settled  it  with  me.  When  a  Negro  who 
has  been  a  slave  can  make  such  a  speech  as  that,  it  is 
time  that  every  one  of  them  should  be  free.  I  am 
against  slavery  from  this  day." 

And  he  kept   his  word. 

During  this  time  Mr.  DOUGLASS  became  the  one 
colored  man  who  was  well  and  favorably  known  to  the 
whole  American  people.  At  that  time,  the  country- 
people  represented  the  heart  of  American  sentiment. 
Only  one-fifth  of  the  population  lived  in  great  cities, 
instead  of  fifty-eight  per  cent,  as  now.  Throughout  all 


50  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

the  country  regions  of  the  North  the  colored  man  was 
rarely  seen.  There  were  whole  counties  without  a  single 
colored  inhabitant.  Now  and  then,  a  fugitive  struggled 
into  a  community,  and  settled  down.  But  in  the  main, 
sentiment  of  the  North  in  regard  to  the  Negro  was  based 
on  hearsay ;  and  very  queerly,  in  this  case,  the  hearsay 
of  the  interested  planter  was  generally  preferred  over 
the  testimony  of  the  disinterested  observer.  To  this  mass 
of  opinion,  Mr.  DOUGLASS  came  as  a  concrete  fact  of 
tremendous  force.  Almost  every  one  spoke  kindly  and 
pleasantly  of  him  ;  thousands  took  him  into  their  homes, 
and  made  him  the  basis  of  their  conclusions  in  regard 
to  the  righteousness  of  Slavery.  In  a  dozen  States  he 
had  come  to  be  known  to  a  large  proportion  of  the 
people,  who  had  little  if  any  knowledge  of  any  other 
colored  man.  When  the  time  came,  he  was  naturally 
looked  upon  as  the  embodiment  of  all  his  race's 
x  interests  and  qualities. 

AS     A     POLITICIAN. 

With  the  organization  of  the  Republican  party  in 
1854,  Mr.  DOUGLASS  became  at  once  an  active  and 
honored  member.  This  appears  the  more  remarkable 
when  we  consider  the  fact  that  there  were  no  colored 
voters  of  any  consequence  at  the  North  who  could  be 
said  to  constitute  what  might  be  termed  a  "  following " 
of  his  own  people.  The  "free  person  of  color,"  though 
he  could  not  be  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  nor  a 
citizen  of  any  State,  within  the  meaning  of  that  term 
in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  by  a  singular 
inconsistency,  could  be  a  voter  in  any  State  which  saw 


THE    EULOGY.  51 

fit  to  give  him  the  ballot,  and  could  thus  become  a  part 
of  the  electoral  power  of  the  nation.  This  power  was, 
however,  conferred  on  him  by  only  four  or  five  States 
of  the  Union,  and  in  these  the  colored  population  was 
very  small,  and  the  Republican  majorities  very  reliable. 
So  that,  in  fact,  there  was  no  colored  vote  which  it  was 
of  any  material  consequence  to  the  new  party  to  secure. 
Besides  that,  the  plain  interest  of  the  colored  voter  has 
always  lain  with  the  Republican  party,  since  through 
that  he  has  obtained  all  the  rights  he  has  enjoyed,  and 
to  that  he  must  still  look  to  secure  their  enjoyment. 

It  cannot  be  said,  therefore,  that  Mr.  DOUGLASS  was 
welcomed  to  the  councils  of  the  Republicans  because  of 
any  influence  he  had  among  those  of  his  own  race  or 
color  whose  votes  the  new  party  desired  to  secure.  The 
simple  truth  is,  that  he  was  welcomed  as  an  orator  of 
singularly  convincing  power,  and  as  a  living  justification 
of  the  party  tendency,  if  not  its  avowed  purpose.  He  was 
the  first  instance  of  a  colored  man  being  regarded  as  an 
important  factor  of  a  national  party,  that  party  being 
composed  entirely  of  white  voters. 

As  -a  politician,  Mr.  DOUGLASS  was  always  cautious 
and  practical.  He  believed  in  the  theory  that  every 
man  should  use  his  power  as  a  citizen  to  secure  as  much 
actual  betterment  as  possible,  instead  of  refusing  to 
exercise  it  unless  he  could  obtain,  at  once,  all  that  he 
desired.  Had  he  been  a  white  citizen  of  Massachu 
setts,  with  the  advantages  of  opportunity  and  education 
her  sons  have  so  long  enjoyed,  I  have  no  doubt  he 
would  have  been  one  of  her  most  noted  political  leaders. 
The  fact  that  he  broke  away  from  those  with  whom  he 


52          MEMORIAL  OF  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS. 

had  been  so  long  associated,  and  gave  his  allegiance  to 
the  Kepublican  party  because,  though  not  professing  a 
purpose  to  abolish  slavery,  it  did  evince  a  most  earnest 
purpose  to  restrict  it,  is  a  fine  illustration  of  the 
intensely  practical  character  of  his  mind. 

"To  such  a  cause  as  ours,"  he  said,  "a  little  done  is 
worth  more  than  ages  of  clamor  about  what  ought  to 
~be  done!" 

It  was  this  quality  which  eminently  fitted  him  for 
the  role  of  the  practical  statesman.  He  did  not  originate 
policies  nor  invent  methods,  but  he  had  an  unerring 
instinct  as  to  what  promised  to  advance  the  cause 
nearest  his  heart  and  bring  the  public  sentiment  ulti 
mately  to  entertain  and  indorse  his  plea  for  liberty  and 
justice  for  his  people.  This  he  always  kept  steadily 
in  view.  Until  the  emancipation  of  the  slave,  politics 
meant  nothing  to  him  except  as  it  bore  upon  that  event. 
Very  many  of  the  leaders  of  the  Abolition  movement 
had  imbibed  the  common  fallacy  that  the  only  way  to 
secure  a  needed  reform  in  a  republic,  is  to  demand  that 
all  other  political  questions  shall  be  subordinated  to  it. 
Mr.  DOUGLASS,  with  a  political  instinct  which  seems 
marvellous  now,  when  we  consider  the  entire  exclusion 
of  all  other  interests  from  his  thought  and  purpose, 
recognized  the  broader  fact  that  a  minority  should 
always  strive  not  merely  to  overcome  or  force  a  majority 
to  yield  to  all  their  demands  upon  any  subject,  but  to 
persuade  them,  if  possible,  to  accept  some  of  them.  The 
tact,  patience,  and  knowledge  of  human  nature  which  he 
manifested  at  this  period  of  his  career,  prove  conclu 
sively  the  eminence  he  would  have  attained  had  not 


THE    EULOGY.  53 

caste  thrown  an  insuperable  barrier  in  his  way.  Given 
a  white  skin,  and  there  is  no  limit  to  be  placed  on  the 
political  success  he  might  have  achieved. 

EELEASE     FROM    BONDAGE. 

There  is  something  very  curious  in  the  fact  that 
FREDERICK  DOUGLASS  remained  for  years  a  slave  even 
after  he  had  achieved  no  little  eminence  as  a  public 
speaker  and  had  become  especially  distinguished  as  an 
Abolition  orator.  He  was  by  no  means  lacking  in  busi 
ness  capacity,  and  he  must  have  been  in  receipt  of  a 
fair  income  during  this  period.  Why  he  or  his  friends 
-in  the  North  did  not  raise  the  insignificant  sum  neces 
sary  to  set  his  mind  at  rest  and  save  him  from  the 
constant  fear  of  recapture  and  reenslavement,  instead 
of  waiting  for  two  English  women  to  collect  and  for 
ward  to  his  owner  the  very  moderate  sum  requisite  to 
set  him  free  and  relieve  him  from  such  apprehension, 
I  have  always  been  unable  to  understand.  It  has  been 
said  that  some  were  so  opposed  to  recognizing  the  claim 
of  property  in  man  that  they  refused  to  countenance 
any  such  proceeding,  and  that  there  were  others  who 
thought  his  capture  and  rendition  as  a  fugitive  slave 
would  have  such  an  effect  upon  the  public  sentiment 
of  the  North  as  to  advance  the  cause  of  liberty  even 
more  than  his  ceaseless  labors  as  an  agitator  could. 
Of  all  these  things  I  speak  not  from  personal  knowl 
edge.  Except  the  progress  of  public  sentiment  which 
a  boy  notes  even  better  than  a  man,  I  knew  nothing 
of  the  Abolition  movement  until  it  entered  on  its  last 
stage  and  became  not  distinctly  a  separate  movement, 


54:  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

but  part  of  a  great  national  impulse.  But  hearing 
him  relate  his  profound  emotion  at  being  made  entirely 
a  free  man  —  how  he  went  out  and  walked  the  streets 
saying  to  himself  as  a  strange  face  appeared  : 

"  I  am  not  afraid !  I  am  free,  and  no  power  can 
tear  me  from  my  home  or  send  me  back  to  bondage!" 

Hearing  him  speak  of  the  rapture  of  this  release  from 
the  bondage  of  apprehension,  I  have  wondered  that 
he  should  have  counted  it  a  duty,  or  that  others  should 
have  regarded  it  as  a  case  in  which  he  should  have 
been  allowed  to  suffer  for  so  long  a  time  rather  than 
recognize  even  by  his  deliverance  the  doctrine  of  prop 
erty  in  man. 

I  have  been  told  very  recently,  indeed,  that  he  stoutly 
opposed  any  such  project,  and  would  have  forbidden  it 
when  set  on  foot  in  England  had  it  been  in  his  power. 
There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  this  statement.  Indeed,  it 
furnishes  the  only  reasonable  solution  of  the  situation, 
and  raises  him  to  the  position  of  a  hero,  offering  his 
liberty  and  life  to  promote  the  liberation  of  his  people. 

Yet  it  seems  hardly  in  accord  with  the  severely  prac 
tical  quality  of  his  mind,  and  can  only  be  accounted 
for  upon  the  fact  that  individual  property  in  man  was 
then  accounted  the  most  essential  quality  of  slavery. 
In  truth,  the  legal  condition  of  inferiority  was,  as  time 
has  shown,  the  most  important  feature  of  the  legal 
estate  of  slavery.  But  whatever  the  fact,  we  may  be 
sure  that  the  desire  to  promote  the  cause  of  liberty 
lay  at  the  bottom  of  this  refusal  to  buy  or  to  be  bought; 
since  those  who  gave  their  hearts  and  hands  to  the 
Abolition  movement  were  not  the  men  and  women  to 


THE    EULOGY.  55 

permit  any  other  consideration  to  restrain  them  from 
giving  liberty  to  such  a  devoted  co-worker  in  the  cause. 
Indeed,  I  have  no  doubt  that  a  penny  collection  set 
on  foot  among  the  American  people  would  very  soon 
have  yielded  enough  to  have  purchased  his  liberty,  and 
for  one,  I  am  sorry  to-night  that  this  opportunity  was 
not  accorded  to  them,  and  the  honor  of  freeing  the 
most  distinguished  American  slave  was  permitted  to  fall 
to  the  lot  of  the  English  friends  of  liberty.  No  doubt 
the  course  adopted  was  well-meant ;  perhaps  it  was 
wise,  but  I  would  have  been  glad  to  hand  the  message 
down  to  my  descendants,  that  I  had  given  even  a  penny 
to  take  the  badge  of  servitude  from  the  neck  of  one 
who  did  so  much  to  wake  the  conscience  of  the  nation 
to  the  shame  which  was  dragging  it  down  to  deserved 
ignominy. 

THE     FIRST    LEADER     OF     II  IS     RACE. 

With  the  outbreak  of  the  War  of  Rebellion,  Mr. 
DOUGLASS  appears  in  a  new  role,  that  of  representative 
and  leader  of  his  people. 

Without  embroiling  himself  with  those  leaders  of  the 
Abolition  movement,  for  whom  he  had  so  profound  a 
veneration,  and  to  whom  the  world  owes  an  inextin 
guishable  debt  of  gratitude,  he  saw  their  error  and 
realized,  as  they  did  not  always,  that  the  trend  of  events 
was  toward  the  liberation  of  his  people. 

u  The  more  I  saw  of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  he  said  in 
1866,  "  the  more  surely  I  became  convinced  that  he 
was  the  instrument  selected  by  Divine  wisdom  for  the 
liberation  of  my  people,  and  I  determined  that  no  effort 


56          MEMORIAL  OF  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS. 

should  be  lacking  on  my  part  to  uphold  his  hands. 
Many  of  my  friends,  many  of  my  own  people,  differed 
with  me,  but  to  my  mind  the  tendency  seemed  all  the 
time  as  clear  and  evident  as  the  sun  in  heaven." 

Of  the  details  of  this  time  I  know  but  little.  That, 
in  the  main,  Mr.  DOUGLASS  stood  firm  in  his  faith  in 
that  man  who,  as  the  years  go  by,  is  seen  more  and 
more  clearly  to  have  been  in  brain,  in  tact,  in  unob 
trusive  steadfastness,  in  faith  and  prophetic  clearness  of 
vision,  the  greatest  man  of  his  age,  if  not  of  any  age, 
-Abraham  Lincoln,  —  there  can  be  no  question.  That 
he  should  sometimes  have  wavered  is  not  to  be  won 
dered  at,  when  Sunnier  and  Wilson,  Phillips  and  Wade, 
lost  faith  in  the  leader  whose  greatness  and  wisdom, 
patience  and  sagacity,  they  failed  to  comprehend. 

From  the  first,  Mr.  DOUGLASS  urged  upon  the  Pres 
ident  the  employment  of  colored  men,  if  not  as  soldiers, 
at  least  as  organized  laborers.  As  soon  as  the  time 
was  ripe,  he  began  to  urge  their  enlistment  as  soldiers, 
and  devoted  himself  to  the  recruiting  and  organization 
of  such  forces.  It  is  said  that  one  who  was  urging 
the  organization  of  colored  troops  said  to  Mr.  Lincoln : 
"Why  do  you  not  give  FRED  DOUGLASS  a  commission?" 
—  "What  rank  would  you  suggest?"  asked  the  President. 
-"Why  not  make  him  a  brigadier?"  was  the  reply. 
"  He  could  easily  raise  a  division  of  colored  troops." 

"Where  would  you  get  the  officers?"  asked  Lincoln. 
"  If  Mr.  DOUGLASS  had  a  military  training  and  we  could 
find  colored  men  capable  of  service  as  field,  line,  and 
staff  for  such  a  command,  it  would  be  different.  But 
you  jnust  remember  that  even  then  the  problem  would 


THE    EULOGY.  57 

not  be  solved.  Mr.  Douglass  is  not  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States.  Would  I  be  justified  in  appointing  him 
to  a  responsible  command  ?  The  truth  is,  he  is  too  big 
for  a  small  place.  He  is  the  representative  of  his  people, 
and  it  would  not  be  to  their  interest  that  he  should 
hold  a  subordinate  position.  I  appreciate  Mr.  DOUG 
LASS'  merit,  and  he  appreciates  the  difficulties  of  my 
position." 

"  I  felt  abashed,"  said  my  informant,  "  that  I  had 
not  realized  these  difficulties  before  they  were  pointed 
out  to  me." 

There  is  no  doubt  that  there  was  a  disposition  to  urge 
such  action  upon  the  President,  and  if  Mr.  DOUGLASS 
had  taken  counsel  of  his  ambition  instead  of  keeping  in 
view  the  welfare  of  his  people  and  the  country  whose 
destiny  they  must  share,  it  is  quite  probable/  that  such 
an  experiment  might  have  been  tried.  That  it  would 
have  been  hazardous  to  the  Union  cause,  the  emancipa 
tion  of  the  slaves  and  the  fame  of  Mr.  DOUGLASS,  there 
can  be  little  doubt.  Without  the  recognition  to  which 
he  was  so  well  entitled,  and  which  few  men  would  have 
foreborne  to  claim,  Mr.  DOUGLASS  devoted  himself  to 
the  raising  of  troops  for  the  defence  of  the  Union. 

EMANCIPATION. 

At  the  close  of  the  war,  Mr.  DOUGLASS  found  him 
self  in  a  position  of  the  highest  honor  and  extremest 
difficulty.  By  the  white  people  of  the  North  he  was 
regarded  as  in  an  especial  manner  the  representative  of 
the  colored  people.  The  colored  people  of  the  South, 
only  half-informed  with  regard  to  his  peculiar  relation 


58  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

to  the  long  struggle  which  had  culminated  in  their 
emancipation,  as  yet  regarded  him  simply  as  the 
most  fortunate  of  his  race,  whose  position  in  the  esteem 
of  the  country  only  showed  to  what  others  might  attain. 
They  did  not  realize  that  during  all  these  years  while 
he  had  been  fighting  valiantly  the  battle  of  freedom, 
he  had  been  under  a  process  of  education  the  like  of 
which  no  other  man  of  his  race  ever  enjoyed.  From 
slavery  to  the  society  of  men  and  women  of  the  highest 
culture  in  the  land;  from  service  under  a  harsh  task 
master  to  being  the  honored  guest  in  the  best  white 
homes  of  the  land,  was  a  transformation  few  men 
would  have  had  the  moral  quality  to  experience  without 
becoming  giddy  with  an  undue  sense  of  their  own  per 
sonal  merit.  Escaping  that,  however,  such  a  life  was 
the  most  perfect  of  educational  forces  which  swiftly 
removed  him  to  an  infinite  distance  from  the  life  from 
which  he  had  fled.  He  became  a  slave  who  had  put 
slavery  under  his  feet.  He  found  himself,  in  sentiment 
and  feeling,  much  nearer  akin  to  the  most  refined  white 
society  of  the  North  than  to  the  "  freedmen "  of  the  South. 
They  had  been  freed  in  an  instant.  The  moral  and  intel 
lectual  stamp  of  slavery  was  still  upon  them.  He  had 
had  thirty  years  of  preparation  for  the  miracle  he  lived 
to  behold. 

During  all  this  time,  his  whole  thought  had  been  liberty. 
Freedom  for  all,  equal  right  before  the  law ;  that  was 
all  he  asked  for  those  akin  to  him  in  blood  and  linked 
with  him  in  destiny.  His  mind  had  never  gone  beyond 
this  climax.  He  had  never  asked  himself  what  would 
happen  afterwards.  Until  the  outbreak  of  the  war, 


THE    EULOGY.  59 

indeed,  he  never  expected  to  see  this  result.  He  did 
not  doubt  that  it  would  come,  but  looked  upon  it  as 
being  generations  away  rather  than  close  at  hand.  While 
his  caution  and  sense  of  practicality  showed  him  the 
utterly  delusive  character  of  John  Brown's  vision  of  a 
government  based  on  the  hope  of  systematic  cooperation 
of  the  slave-population  of  the  South  in  an  endeavor  to 
destroy  slavery  by  force,  yet  his  despair  of  better 
results  under  existing  conditions  was  such  as  to  restrain 
him  from  giving  information  in  regard  to  the  same  or 
approving  the  desperate  venture  on  which  this  "  inspired 
maniac "  was  about  to  engage.  Had  he  been  able  to 
forecast  even  possible  success,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
he  would  have  engaged  in  it  most  heartily.  But  he 
saw  only  defeat,  useless  sacrifice,  and  the  contempt  of 
all  practical  people.  Brown  was  angry  because  he  did 
not  give  entire  approval  to  his  desperate  venture.  It 
was  well  that  he  did  not.  Its  hopelessness  was  the 
very  element  that  gave  it  strength.  That  such  a  little 
company  should  embark  upon  so  desperate  a  venture 
to  secure  liberty  for  a  despised  race,  fixed  the  world's 
attention  and  made  the  leader's  death  a  grand  and 
awful  spectacle.  If  he  had  been  in  fact,  as  he  desired 
and  hoped  to  be,  the  advance-guard  of  a  popular  move 
ment  to  free  the  slaves  by  force  of  arms,  his  act  would 
have  been  robbed  of  the  moral  grandeur  on  which  its 
effect  depended. 

It  was  not,  of  course,  possible  that  Mr.  DOUGLASS 
should  foresee  such  result.  The  question  in  his  mind  was 
merely  as  to  its  success,  and  this  he  at  once  decided  in 
the  negative.  He  was  willing  to  engage  in  anything 


GO  MEMORIAL  OF  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS. 

that  promised  good  results,  no  matter  how  desperate,  but 
would  not  give  his  approval  to  what  seemed  destined  to 
hinder  rather  than  advance  the  end  he  sought. 

Emancipation  came  to  him,  as  to  all  others,  as  a 
surprise.  Until  the  very  last  moment  it  was  doubtful 
whether  the  government  would  appeal  to  this  extraordi 
nary  power  in  order  to  put  down  rebellion.  When  it 
was  done  it  was  doubtful  whether  the  people  of  the 
North  would  approve.  Even  if  they  did  approve,  it  was  a 
question  as  to  what  would  be  the  legal  result.  Not  until 
December,  1865,  was  the  XHIth  Amendment  of  the  Con 
stitution  made  the  law  of  the  land  and  slavery  abolished. 
Even  then,  the  problem  of  the  future  relations  of  the 
white  and  colored  man  in  the  American  republic  was 
but  half-solved  —  perhaps  not  even  half-solved.  Five 
millions  of  people  who  had  been  slaves  were  made  free 
by  its  provisions.  Yet  they  were  not  citizens.  No  man 
could  buy  or  sell  them  or  control  their  labor  for  his 
own  advantage;  but  they  had  no  rights,  except  such  as 
the  several  States  might  confer  upon  them ;  they  were 
not  citizens,  but  freedmen,  or,  in  the  language  of  the 
Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
in  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  they  were  "  free  persons  of 
color^"  "mere  inhabitants"  of  the  several  States,  without 
rights,  except  such  as  the  States  might  confer  upon  them. 

It  was  three  years  afterward,  in  July,  1868,  when 
the  XlVth  Amendment  was  proclaimed,  and  for  the 
first  time  in  our  history,  a  colored  man  became  a  CITIZEN 
OF  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

During  these  years  the  fact  developed  that  mere  lib 
erty,  the  abolition  of  "  slavery  and  involuntary  servitude," 


THE    EULOGY.  61 

was  not  .enough  to  secure  for  the  colored  man  that 
equal  enjoyment  of  privilege  and  opportunity  which  is  the 
essence  of  liberty.  It  became  apparent  to  all  observers 
that  the  long  struggle  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  was  not 
the  end  of  conflict  for  the  establishment  and  perfection 
of  the  liberty  of  the  individual.  The  destruction  of  slavery 
had  only  unmasked  the  other  and  more  difficult  problem 
of  Caste. 

A    RACE    REDEEMED. 

There  was  something  pathetic  in  the  feeling  of  dis 
appointment  which  came  over  Mr.  DOUGLASS  as  he 
realized  this  fact.  He  had  fought  so  long  for  liberty, 
had  hoped  for  so  much,  and  now  it  seemed  as  if 
the  great  conflict  for  justice  had  just  began.  He  was 
not  a  leader  in  the  sense  of  one  who  devises  policies  or 
methods.  He  did  not  originate.  His  function  was  to 
judge  of  what  others  might  offer  —  to  pass  upon  the 
practicability  of  the  plans  of  others.  \Yhat  was  needed 
to  make  the  work  of  emancipation  and  enfranchisement 
complete  and  effectual  ?  This  was  the  question  he  was 
always  asking,  until  the  end  came.  At  first  he  relied  on 
the  provisions  of  the  XlVth  Amendment.  They  seemed' 
to  him  suffcient ;  but  as  they  were  bent  and  twisted, 
in  the  process  of  legal  construction,  he  gave  up  that 
hope.  Of  the  opinion  in  the  case  of  the  United 
States  vs.  Cruikshank,  he  said  pithily :  "  It  is  the  Dred 
Scott  case  of  the  new  dispensation." 

To  the  clamorous  and  pathetic  appeal  of  his  people 
to  be  delivered  from  unjust  discrimination,  from  oppres 
sion  and  outrage,  which  they  suffered  because  of  race 
and  color,  he  could  only  answer,  "  Wait,  work,  hope !  " 


02  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

It  was  a  vague  remedy  —  how  vague  he  well  knew, 
as  those  to  whom  it  was  addressed  fully  realized. 
In  this  again,  that  strong  and  cautious  self-restraint 
which  was  a  marked  feature  of  his  character  showed 
itself  most  clearly.  He  dreaded  above  all  things 
giving  any  advice  to  his  people  that  might  work  them 
injury.  He  recognized  his  inability  to  cope  with  the 
new  problem.  His  life-thought  had  been  fixed  on 
liberty.  He  had  studied  slavery  in  all  its  phases. 
Caste,  the  distinction  in  legal  right  or  opportunity 
based  on  race  or  color  and  having  its  root  in  legisla 
tion  of  a  subtle,  evasive,  and  fraudulent  character  — 
this  was  an  enemy  of  a  new  type.  The  old  arguments 
would  not  do.  The  old  weapons  were  powerless  against 
it.  The  old  allies  were  dispersed  and  could  not  be 
rallied  to  fight  the  new  wrong.  Other  men  must  be 
trained  for  the  warfare.  Other  hands  must  forge  the 
new  weapons.  Other  hearts  must  bear  the  burden. 
Other  souls  must  endure  the  scath  of  the  impending 
conflict.  This  was  the  conclusion  at  which  he  arrived 
during  the  years  that  lay  between  emancipation  and 
the  time  when  he  was  called  to  give  up  his  work  on 
earth. 

Once  during  the  last  year  of  life  the  old  lion  roused 
himself  for  battle.  In  the  congress  in  regard  to  the 
state  and  condition  of  the  Negro,  held  at  Chicago 
during  the  World's  Fair,  the  old  argument  of  the 
essential  and  organic  inferiority  of  the  colored  race  was 
put  forth  with  almost  as  much  particularity  as  in  the 
old  days  when  it  was  made  the  justification  of  iniquity 
and  the  excuse  of  oppression.  At  the  sound  of  this 


TIIK    EULOGY.  ()3 

familiar  war-cry  the  old  soldier  mustered  his  failing 
energies,  and  the  torrent  of  ridicule  and  denunciation 
of  this  infamous  standard  by  which  it  is  still  sought 
to  measure  his  people's  right  to  enjoy  "  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness/'  is  said  by  those  who 
heard  it,  to  have  been  worthy  of  his  best  estate. 

"It  is  the  old,  old  fight,"  he  said  to  me  a  few  months 
afterwards.  "  The  strange  claim  that  a  white,  intelli 
gent,  Christian  people  makes  of  right  dependent  on  race 
or  color  —  of  a  right  to  oppress,  to  degrade,  to  sub 
jugate,  or  destroy  another  people,  merely  because  they 
are  not  as  white  or  as  wise  or  as  strong  as  them 
selves.  Will  it  never  end  ?  Will  the  civilized  white 
man  never  cease  trying  to  outdo  the  savage  in  bar 
barity  ?  Will  the  Christian  never  learn  that  the 
colored  man  is  only  a  weaker  brother  ?  God  only 
knows  what  the  end  will  be !  I  am  waiting  —  waiting 
with  my  ear  close  to  the  ground  to  catch  the  sound 
of  the  chariot  wheels  !  " 

REWARDS     OF    LABOR. 

His  prominence  as  a  colored  man  —  the  fact  that  he 
was,  indeed,  the  only  colored  man  known  to  the  whole 
country  —  made  it  eminently  proper  that  he  should  be 
recognized  by  the  government  which  he  had  served 
in  promoting  its  most  important  policy. 

When  President  Grant  proposed  the  acquisition  of 
a  naval  station  in  San  Domingo,  —  a  proposal  which 
our  present  complications  with  England  over  the  Ven 
ezuelan  boundary  and  possible  complication  with  Spain 
growing  out  of  Cuban  affairs  show  to  have  been 


(54  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

a  policy  of  the  highest  wisdom,  -  -  Mr.  DOUGLASS, 
with  Dr.  Howe  and  Senator  Wade,  were  designated  as 
a  commission  to  proceed  to  San  Domingo  and  ascer 
tain  and  report  upon  the  conditions  there  prevailing, 
and  the  desirability  of  such  action.  •  It  was  the  first 
time  a  Negro  had  been  charged  with  any  public 
function  by  the  government  of  the  United  States,  and 
this  action  of  the  great  soldier  was  correctly  construed 
by  the  world  into  a  purpose  on  his  part  to  maintain 
the  policy  and  guarantee  of  equal  citizenship  for  the 
colored  man,  which  his  party  had  proclaimed  and  the 
country  had  indorsed. 

He  was  afterward  appointed  Marshal  of  the  District 
of  Columbia,  Register  of  the  same,  and  Minister  Pleni 
potentiary  to  Hayti.  These  honors  brought  also  wealth 
and  the  means  for  enjoying  a  dignified  and  well-earned 
leisure.  For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the 
Republic,  a  Negro  became  an  important  and  universally 
esteemed  personage  at  the  capital  of  the  Union.  He 
was  a  marked  and  honored  presence  at  all  ceremonial 
functions,  and  was  sought  out  by  travellers  from  all 
lands  as  one  of  the  most  notable  and  distinguished 
citizens  of  the  Republic.  In  all  his  official  relations  he 
was  dignified,  courteous,  and  incorruptible. 

He  realized  the  dignity  of  the  position  he  held 
and  would  not  permit  any  one,  however  high,  to  ques 
tion  his  rights  or  reflect  upon  his  fitness  or  capacity 
to  discharge  its  duties.  While  Minister  to  Hayti  a 
naval  officer  was  sent  to  the  island  charged  with  a 
diplomatic  mission  which  he  was  to  perform,  not  in 
connection  with  the  Minister,  but  in  disregard  of  him 


THE    EULOGY.  (j,> 

and  his  high  office.  Mr.  DOUGLASS  regarded  this  as 
an  affront  which  was  put  upon  him  because  of  his 
race,  and  promptly  resigned.  He  was  probably  correct 
in  his  conclusion  that  such  a  course  would  never  have 
been  adopted  if  the  Minister  Plenipotentiary  had  been 
a  white  man.  At  all  events,  he  was  right  in  resenting 
it  as  an  affront  to  himself,  and  through  him  to  the 
people  of  whom  he  was  the  special  representative  and 
exponent. 

THE    LESSOR    OE    HIS    LIFE. 

His  memory  should  be  an  inspiration  to  every  colored 
man  and  a  warning  to  every  white  American  that 
caste  discrimination,  whether  it  be  the  prop  of  slavery 
or  other  wrong,  cannot  long  be  justified  by  its  results. 
While  it  may  be  many  years  or  even  generations  before 
another  colored  man  will  attain  the  same  distinctive 
prominence  in  the  whole  country,  Mr.  DOUGLASS  was 
not  only  the  exponent  of  new  conditions  but  the  excep 
tion  that  proves  the  rule  in  regard  to  old  ones.  A 
people  that  can  produce  a  DOUGLASS  under  the  condi 
tions  that  beset  his  life,  will  unquestionably  produce  many 
who  shall  be  his  superiors  in  attainment  and  power 
under  an  improved  environment.  The  law  of  the  evo 
lution  of  types  in  humanity  is  just  as  inflexible  as  in 
the  lower  orders  of  life.  One  DOUGLASS  born  out  of 
slavery  is  the  forerunner  of  many  to  be  born  out  of  the 
semi-freedom  which  is  all  that  Caste  permits  his  race 
yet  to  enjoy. 

The  difficulties  that  beset  his  life  can  never  be 
duplicated  in  all  the  world's  life  which  is  to  be.  One 


66          MEMORIAL  OF  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS. 

of  the  twin  dragons  of  oppression  has  at  least  been 
slain.  Slavery  is  no  more.  From  the  rising  to  the  set 
ting  of  the  sun  there  is  no  place  in  any  civilized 
land  where  oppression  dare  wear  that  name.  The 
slave-ship,  the  slave-mart,  the  auction-block,  the  life 
which  was  in  all  things  subject  to  another's  will,  the 
political  condition  which  denied  marriage  and  family, 
and  legal  offspring,  which  by  law  refused  the  rights  of 
self-defence,  forbade  the  race  to  possess  or  to  inherit;  to 
receive,  to  give  or  take  ;  to  sue  or  be  sued  ;  which  denied 
the  sacred  rite  of  marriage,  and  in  the  name  of  Christ 
forced  millions  to  an  adulterous  estate  to  gratify  Christian 
lust  and  greed  —  this  monster,  which  not  only  had  survived 
the  Dark  Ages  but  grew  daily  more  horrible  in  character 
and  aspect  with  the  advance  of  civilization,  is  at  least  no 
more  !  Not  only  in  our  land  but  in  all  the  earth  slavery 
is  dead !  Only  the  evil  stench  of  its  decay  remains  to 
offend  the  moral  sense  of  man ! 

Caste,  the  twin  demon,  is  yet  to  be  destroyed.  Let 
the  life  of  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS  be  an  example  to 
those  who  must  take  up  the  conflict  where  he  was 
obliged  to  lay  it  down,  and  a  warning  to  those  who 
would  put  aside  and  cover  up  the  wrongs  done  to-day, 
in  the  name  of  science  and  of  that  new  God  which 
measures  human  rights,  not  by  manhood  but  by  race 
and  color,  making  the  shallow  claim  of  a  supreme  supe 
riority  the  excuse  for  wrong.  A  nation,  a  civilization,  a 
Christianity,  which  within  one  man's  memory  upheld 
slavery  with  all  its  horrors  should  hesitate  to  proclaim 
anew  its  infallibility.  The  land  which  gave  a  million 
lives  to  destroy  the  demon  Slavery,  should  beware  of 


THE    EULOGY.  G7 

enthroning    in    its    place    the    fouler   and    more    dangerous 
Moloch,  CASTE! 

As  slave,  freedman,  citizen,  and  patriot,  FREDERICK 
DOUGLASS'  life  was  such  as  to  reflect  fame  upon  his 
people,  credit  upon  those  who  listened  to  his  admoni 
tions,  renown  upon  the  nation,  which  finally  recognized 
his  merits,  and  honor  on  all  who  do  honor  to  his 
memory.  Within  this  fane  dedicated  to  liberty  and  the 
memory  of  noble  sons  of  the  Republic,  no  worthier  life 
has  been  commemorated. 


PERSONAL    REMINISCENCES 


PERSONAL    REMINISCENCES    OF    FREDERICK 
DOUGLASS. 


IT  is  peculiarly  fitting  that  Boston,  here  in  sacred 
Faneuil  Hall,  should  recognize  the  talents,  admire  the 
wonderful  career,  and  exalt  the  lofty  virtues  of  one 
among  the  most  eminent  of  her  adopted  and  favorite 
sons.  It  was  upon  this  free  soil  of  Massachusetts  that 
FREDERICK  DOUGLASS,  the  panting  fugitive,  first  felt 
secure  from  the  bay  of  the  blood-hounds  of  slavery. 

It  was  here,  alas!  he  awoke  too  soon  to  the  fact  that 
not  even  the  Bay  State  strand,  at  that  time,  could 
really  guarantee  the  liberty  and  privileges  which  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  had  promised  to  her 
citizens.  Here,  also,  he  learned  that  caste  still  dared 
to  ostracize  where  freedom  nominally  reigned ;  and  that 
here  free  locomotion,  manly  expansion,  and  full  Christian 
development  were  not,  at  that  time,  considered  wholly 
necessary  for  those  of  a  black  skin. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was  Massachusetts  —  at 
Lynn,  at  Nantucket,  at  Salem,  and  even  in  the  Boston 
of  that  day  —  who  by  her  very  atmosphere,  even  then 
rapidly  purifying,  filled  the  lungs  and  roused  all  the 
faculties  of  a  great  dormant  soul. 

This  of  itself  is  no  small  renown,  even  for  so  great  a 
State.  No  small  plaudit,  even  for  her  whose  boast  still 


72  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

is  that  the  brightest  jewels  of  her  crown  are  "  her  sons, 
native  and  adopted,  the  character,  services,  and  fame  of 
those  who  have  benefited  and  adorned  their  day  and 
generation." 

It  was  on  Massachusetts  soil  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS 
laid  aside  the  exhorter's  robe,  hushed  the  Baltimore 
camp-meeting  melodies  and  Sharpe-street's  trumpet-calls 
to  salvation,  and  essayed  rather  to  preach  the  living 
gospel,  not  alone  in  the  freedom  of  Christ  but  for  the 
freedom  of  humanity. 

In  the  memorable  school-house  at  Nan  tucket  —  the 
home  of  great  Paul  Cuffee,  navigator,  merchant,  colo 
nizer,  strenuous  always  for  civil  rights,  teacher  and 
upholder  of  the  Friendly  Creed  —  DOUGLASS  found  at 
last  his  tongue  suddenly  and  miraculously  loosened ;  saw 
the  blinding  light  from  heaven,  streaming  in  all  efful 
gence,  lighting  up  the  pathway  before  him.  Here  was 
his  earliest  school,  the  Academy  of  the  Abolitionists, — 
that  log  college  of  fiery  eloquence,  fierce  dialectic,  keen 
analysis,  and  unsparing  criticism,  —  the  best  equipped  of 
its  day,  at  once  idealistic,  realistic,  and  sternly  practical. 

To  an  unusually  sensitive  soul,  to  one  extraordinarily 
attuned  and  keyed  to  catch  and  return  the  slightest 
emotion,  everything  at  this  remarkable  period  conspired 
to  develop,  expand,  and  stimulate  the  late  slave-boy  of  the 
Chesapeake.  Quaker  prudence  and  the  "  inner  light," 
Puritan  zeal  for  right,  and  Pilgrim  faith  and  trust,  the 
friendly  hand,  the  beaming,  approving  eye,  the  hearty 
sympathy  which  not  only  recognized  a  new-found  brother, 
but  resolved  he  should  be  heard, 

"  Though  under  ;i  roof  of  black." 


PERSONAL    REMINISCENCES.  73 

The  sights,  the  controversies  of  the  time,  historic 
places,  and  venerated  names,  still  kept  alive  in  lofty 
deed  and  noble  aim  by  honored  descendants,  —  the 
Sewalls,  Quincys,  Phillipses,  Bowditches,  and  Pillsburys, 
heirs  of  all  the  past,  —  all  combined  to  furnish  this  illus 
trious  fugitive  the  grandest  opportunity  for  the  best 
instruction.  Here  was  the  finest  anvil  on  which  to  beat 
into  sturdiest  strength  and  deftest  symmetry  the  polished 
weapons  of  oratory,  persuasion,  pathos,  humor,  and 
invective. 

Bred  upon  the  seashore,  trained  in  the  shipyard,  hav 
ing  caught  glimpses  of  the  eloquence  of  the  ages  in 
the  "  Columbian  Reader ;  "  catching  his  first  full,  free 
breath  by  "  the  deep-sounding  waves "  of  Nantucket, 
can  we  wonder  why  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS,  to  his  latest 
day,  always  turned  with  full  heart,  trembling  voice,  and 
ever  respectful  homage  at  the  very  name  of  Massachu 
setts. 

Upon  the  altar  which  she  long  years  after  raised  to 
defend  the  integrity  of  the  Union  he  offered  his  sons 
to  the  glorious  Fifty-fourth  Massachusetts  Volunteers ;  to 
the  equally  meritorious  Seventh  Massachusetts  Cavalry; 
and  took  his  part  in  the  recruiting  service. 

Crude  in  thought,  diffident  and  distrustful  of  his 
powers,  as  I  have  heard  him  say,  he  was  really  fright 
ened  at  his  first  success.  He  had  the  rare  frankness  in 
later  years  to  acknowledge  that  his  first  inspiration  to 
higher  effort,  to  more  sustained  flights  of  oratory,  and 
more  careful  preparation,  came  from  hearing  the  gifted, 
eloquent  negro,  born  under  the  shadows  of  Harvard,  edu 
cated  at  Salem,  cultured  by  travel,  and  refined  by  the 


74          MEMORIAL  OF  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS. 

fortunate  circumstances  of  cultivated  friendships  and 
associations  —  Charles  Lenox  Remond. 

Mr.  DOUGLASS  used  to  say  that  inheriting  the  preju 
dices  among  which  he  had  grown  up,  there  was  no 
surprise  in  the  beginning  at  Garrison,  Quincy,  Phillips, 
and  Pillsbury.  They  were  ail  white  men,  diverse  though 
they  were  in  culture,  and  talent,  and  eloquence.  In  his 
mind  they  were  naturally  heirs  to  all  the  learning  of 
the  ages.  Hitherto  he  had  heard  only  the  intelligent 
negro  as  a  fervent  exhorter  in  the  religious  home,  in 
Sharpe-street  Church,  Baltimore,  wherein  he  had  early 
sought  peace  in  religion.  But  the  deep  feelings,  and  the 
untrained,  rude  language  of  these  men,  though  freighted 
with  all  the  fullest  and  loftiest  ideals  of  Christian  truth, 
yet  jarred  on  his  own  sensitive  and  poetic  ear,  and 
seemed  mere  noise  and  pathos,  sincere  though  it  was  ; 
it  seemed,  indeed,  to  lack  the  one  note  for  which  his 
soul  yearned  —  cultivation.  He  had  never  expected  to 
find  it  among  his  own  race,  and  had  thought  it  unat 
tainable  until  he  heard  Remoiid. 

He  deemed  it  even  then  peculiar  to  New  England- 
reared  colored  men,  until  in  the  national  convention 
of  colored  citizens,  held  at  Buffalo,  N.Y.,  August  15, 
1843,  where  Remond,  of  Salem,  and  DOUGLASS,  of 
Boston,  represented  Massachusetts,  he  listened  for  the 
first  time  to  other  educated,  talented,  and  intrepid 
colored  men,  preachers,  teachers,  business  men,  scholars, 
and  specialists  —  Wright,  Ray,  Garnet,  Beaman,  Platt, 
Johnson,  Loguen,  Malvin,  Francis,  and  others,  whose 
friendship  there  begun,  he  enjoyed,  in  some  instances, 
for  over  forty  years.  Many  persons,  even  now  mure 


PERSONAL    REMINISCENCES.  75 

unfamiliar  with  the  true  history  of  the  negro  in  America 
than  Mr.  DOUGLASS  was  then,  are  inclined  to  look  upon 
him  as  the  only  intellectual,  the  only  eloquent  orator, 
debater,  and  writer  among  his  race ;  but  at  no  time  of 
his  wonderful  and  varied  career  did  any  one  hear  him 
even  intimate,  much  less  make,  such  an  assertion. 

I  remember  hearing  him  say  of  the  venerated  Bishop 
Loguen  that  he  was  "  one  of  the  most  powerful  orators  " 
he  had  ever  heard ;  of  Garnet,  that  he  was  "  a  master  of 
invective  ;"  of  Ringgold  Ward,  that  "his  eloquence  was 
as  intense  as  his  blackness,"  and  "his  gestures  as  grace 
ful  as  his  body  was  huge  and  ungainly ;  "  of  Remond, 
"  I  always  kept  him  in  mind,  and  became  almost  wild 
when  I  read  of  his  wonderful  speeches  in  Exeter  Hall." 

So  Themistocles  was  kept  awake  by  the  fame  of  the 
illustrious  dead  of  the  Ceramicus.  So  genius  ever  needs 
the  stimulus  of  recorded  deeds,  or  the  hoof-beat  of  the 
pacer,  the  snort  of  a  rival,  or  the  indefinable  electric 
presence  of  kindred  genius,  to  rouse  to  highest  effort. 

As  a  Boston  boy,  I  well  recall  my  first  sight  of 
Mr.  DOUGLASS  in  the  late  fifties.  It  was  in  the 
old  Melodeon,  on  Washington  street,  where  the  Anti- 
Slavery  conventions  and  Woman's  Rights  conventions 
were  wont  to  be  held. 

I  had  been  accustomed  to  read  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS' 
paper  "  The  North  Star,"  but  was  too  young  to  have 
formed  any  clear  notion  of  his  personality.  Through 
the  kindness  of  my  mentor  and  early  friend,  William 
C.  Nell,  whose  statue  of  Attucks  —  his  life's  dream  — 
is  at  last,  thank  God,  erected,  I  was  privileged  to  go 
to  the  rear  of  the  stage  entrance  and  there  for  the 


76          MEMORIAL  OF  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS. 

first  time  saw  in  one  group,  DOUGLASS,  Garrison,  Abby 
Kelly  Foster,  Purvis,  Sojourner  Truth,  Phillips,  Pills- 
bury,  and  William  Wells  Brown. 

To-night  memory  brings  back  the  vision  of  ^Eschines 
in  exile,  reading  Demosthenes  on  the  Crown  to  his 
rapt  pupils,  "  would  that  you  could  have  seen,  would 
that  you  could  have  heard  the  great  original."  To  my 
boyish  sight  Mr.  DOUGLASS  appeared  even  taller  and 
brawnier  of  frame  then  than  any  of  those  about  him, 
and  often  afterwards  I  was  inclined  to  think  it  the 
natural  exaggeration  of  youth ;  but  recently  having  come 
across  the  photograph  of  the  Santo-Domingo  Commission, 
where  Mr.  DOUGLASS  is  seen  seated  at  the  left  of  the 
Commissioners,  on  the  deck  of  the  man-of-war,  the  same 
physical  superiority  there  manifest  confirms  my  earliest 
impression.  Several  generations  must  have  combined  to 
produce  that  frame  of  rugged  oak,  as  centuries  must 
have  rolled  by  and  many  climes  conjoined  to  have  pro 
duced  that  subtlety  of  mind,  and  those  exquisite  effects  of 
voice,  of  tone,  so  rich  in  its  cadent  swell,  that  resembled 
what  may  seem  a  trite,  but  the  only  applicable,  meta 
phor,  the  rolling  of  the  billows  on  the  shore,  the 
booming  of  the  sea  beyond. 

This  first  meeting  with  him  brings  out  only  the 
central  figure  and  that  historic  anti-slavery  group. 
There  was  a  clash  of  opinion,  all  I  at  present  recall, 
and  Sojourner  Truth,  slender,  black,  weird,  seeress  in 
speech  and  manner  —  sibyl,  indeed,  a  fit  foil  to  DOUGLASS 
-  was  opposed ;  but  it  was  the  fencing  of  the  repre 
sentatives,  man  and  woman,  of  the  black  race. 

Afterward,    at    the    Annual    Bazaars,    at    the     Twelfth 


PERSONAL    REMINISCENCES .  7'< 

Baptist  Church,  where  he  lectured,  and  on  the  first  an 
niversary  of  the  hanging  of  John  Brown,  when  a  Boston 
mayor  tried  to  put  down  free  speech,  and  occasioned 
Wendell  Phillips'  finest  effort,  "  Mobs  and  Education," 
I  had  an  opportunity  to  see,  to  know,  to  enjoy  his 
personal  friendship,  and  reverently  study  the  manifold 
phases  of  his  unique  character. 

In  1859-60  every  Massachusetts  breeze  was  surcharged 
with  the  elixir  of  liberty.  My  recollections  of  that 
time  relate  to  places,  men,  and  scenes  —  to  Phillips' 
"  Toussaint  L'Ouverture"  at  Mercantile  Hall;  Theodore 
Parker's  and  Emerson's  discourses  at  Music  Hall,  on  Sun 
days  ;  Frank  Sanborn,  J.  Sella  Martin,  Redpath,  O'Connor, 
and  Hinton ;  Higginson,  Bowditch,  Merriam,  Whipple, 
and  "The  Traveller,"  Slack  and  "The  Commonwealth," 
Z.  K.  Pangborn  and  our  grandest  Governor,  John  A. 
Andrew.  One  felt  and  knew  that  the  contest  was  on ; 
that  the  era  of  moral  suasion  had  passed  ;  that  there 
was  a  Spartan  band  on  Massachusetts  soil  determined 
to  grapple  at  once  with  slavery  and  fight  it  to  the 
death. 

The  meeting  of  the  3d  December,  1860,  was  too  large 
for  the  lesser  temple,  the  Meionaon,  where  Emerson  and 
the  Woman's  Rights  advocates  were  wont  to  hold  forth. 
It  was  adjourned  to  the  larger  temple  above,  so  his 
torically  sacred  to  free  discussion. 

I  was  there,  and  had  edged  my  way  near  my  friends, 
Sella  Martin  and  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS,  at  the  side  plat 
form,  just  as  the  howling  mob  swept  into  the  hall 
and  took  possession. 

Not     an     Abolitionist     retreated.       On     the     contrary, 


78  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

Richard  J.  Hinton,  known  then  to  me  by  sight  and 
name,  called  me  to  him,  asked  if  I  knew  where  Red- 
path's  office  was,  and  bade  me  take  this  card  I  now 
hold  up,  a  sacred  relic,  to  that  office  and  bring  back 
John  Brown's  revolver. 

Mr.  DOUGLASS  said  "  Go  ; "  Mr.  Martin  said  "Go;" 
but  I  needed  no  second  admonition.  Inspired  by  the 
errand,  I  ran  and  brought  the  revolver  under  my  jacket, 
and  remained  on  the  platform  beside  Mr.  DOUGLASS 
until  the  hall  was  cleared ;  but  the  card  I  have  religiously 
preserved  as  a  memento  of  a  day  few  Bostonians  now 
feel  proud  to  recall.  There  is  a  compensation,  it  is 
said,  in  every  untoward  event.  On  that  gloomy 
night,  when  free  speech  seemed  stifled  in  the  city  of 
Boston,  where  were  Sanborn,  Phillips,  DOUGLASS,  and 
Hinton  forced  to  seek  and  find  relief  ?  In  the  old  ark 
of  safety  on  Joy  street,  the  ancient  church  of  Rev. 
Nathaniel  Paul,  co-worker  with  Garrison  in  England, 
the  same  building  wherein  the  Massachusetts  Anti- 
Slavery  Society  drew  its  first  breath,  a  church  then 
presided  over  by  the  eloquent  J.  Sella  Martin.  Here 
the  Abolitionists  met,  while  the  mob  raged  without, 
and  celebrated  the  martyrdom  of  John  Brown.  Here 
they  got  their  second  wind  for  the  conflict  already 
precipitated. 

The  war  came.  Mr.  Phillips  spoke  for  the  first  time 
"  under  the  flag."  We  know  how  Mr.  DOUGLASS 
threw  himself  all  heart  and  mind  and  soul  into  that 
conflict ;  with  what  enthusiasm  he  and  the  Disunionists, 
the  Abolitionists,  and  the  Republicans,  and  the  Demo 
crats,  too,  at  last  rallied  together  for  the  defence  of  the 


PERSONAL    REMINISCENCES.  79 

Union,  which  meant  to  all  a  land  free  without  a  slave 
—  the  ideal  Republic. 

I  was  at  school  at  Oberlin  during  the  battle  years 
1862-1863,  and  hence  did  not  hear  him,  as  some  here 
to-night  heard  him  when  Judge  Russell  ran  up  the 
steps  of  the  platform  of  that  same  Treinont  Temple 
bringing  the  despatch  that  Abraham  Lincoln  had 
issued  the  Proclamation  of  Freedom  !  What  a  coin 
cidence  !  From  the  very  spot  whence  he  had  been 
driven  I860,  the  great  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS  gave  the 
words  to  that  waiting,  anxious  audience,  "  Praise  God 
from  whom  all  blessings  flow,"  and  the  vast  throng 
joined  in  the  grand  Benediction. 

I  stood  in  Faneuil  Hall,  however,  when  the  sur 
render  at  Appomattox  came,  and  heard  Rue's  swelling 
song  of  Jubilee ;  heard  shouts  of  victory,  and  those 
Union  choruses  since  known  everywhere.  The  sten 
torian  notes  of  our  greatest  orator,  great  man,  lover  of 
his  race,  but  greater  lover  of  humanity,  sounded  forth 
the  praises  of  the  Great  Ulysses,  captain  of  armies,  the 
silent  man  of  American  history,  whose  fame,  now 
trumpet-tongued,  has  swrept  over  the  world. 

Who  can  ever  forget  that  scene  ?  We  seemed  then 
to  be  living  —  we  were  living  —  in  an  heroic  age,  when 
words  were  deeds,  and  deeds  were  crystallized  into  ever 
lasting  principles ;  when  men  seemed  likest  gods,  living, 
acting,  breathing,  and  contending  not  for  self,  nor 
place,  nor  power,  not  to  rivet  chains,  but  to  strengthen 
for  all  time  the  freedom  of  their  country. 

Party,  faction,  race,  for  once,  at  least,  in  America 
were  in  reality  lost  sight  of ;  for  once  slavery,  caste, 


80  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

rebellion  found  no  defender,  no  apologizer  throughout 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  reunited  nation,  and  on 
such  occasion,  brief,  alas !  brief  as  it  was,  the  great 
orator  whom  we  mourn  to-night  rose  perhaps  to  the 
transcendent  heigbt  of  his  aspiration  and  his  fame. 

That  was  an  exultant  hour ;  too  rapturous  to  last  ! 
Grave,  grave,  grave  indeed  is  the  responsibility  of  the 
reactionists  who  began  from  that  night  the  propa 
ganda  to  regain,  on  the  field  of  diplomacy,  what  they 
had  lost  in  the  wager  of  battle ;  to  relegate  to  quasi- 
peonage  the  slaves  whom  war  and  military  necessity 
had  freed. 

Thirty  years  have  passed  since  that  eventful  night ; 
thirty  years  of  vast  national  progress  in  wealth,  of  phil 
anthropic  effort ;  years  marked  in  science  and  education; 
in  the  restoration  of  the  negro's  right  to  suffrage ;  in 
the  industrial  development  of  the  great  mass  of  the 
former  bondmen ;  but  with  all  the  progress,  all  the 
education,  thrift,  patient  endurance,  and  deferred  hope, 
the  disgraceful  fact  remains,  and  the  sacred  cause  of 
truth  requires  it  to  be  solemnly  said  here  in  Faneuil 
Hall  that  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS  was  untimely  cut  off, 
through  zeal,  shame,  indignation,  and  righteous  wrath 
at  the  barbarities  perpetrated  upon  his  race  by  men 
indebted  to  them  for  citizenship  ;  at  the  unpardonable 
indifference  of  Northern  Christians,  so  solicitous  for  the 
woes  of  far-off  Armenians ;  at  the  slow-footed  Ameri 
can  justice ;  at  the  sheathed  sword  of  national  author 
ity,  which  flashes  not  forth  like  the  mailed  arm  of 
this  Commonwealth,  nor  utters  its  time-honored  and 
ever-respected  injunction  : 


PERSONAL    REMINISCENCES.  81 


Man  us    haee    inimica    tyrannis, 
Ense  petit  placidam,  sub  libertate 


FREDERICK  DOUGLASS  undoubtedly  died  heart-broken 
at  the  farce  of  freedom,  the  travesty  of  American  citi 
zenship,  in  the  late  rebellious  States,  and  worn  out  with 
speaking  and  writing,  with  the  fervor  of  fifty  years  before. 

Some  of  you  saw  him  a  year  ago  at  Providence,  at 
that  meeting  where  I  had  the  honor  to  preside.  We 
saw  then  the  handwriting  on  the  wall. 

It  is  not  enough  for  us  here  to  repeat  the  mar 
vellous  story  of  his  life.  No  one  will  ever  tell  it 
with  more  simplicity,  more  heart-stirring  pathos,  than  he 
himself  has  already  done  in  matchless  prose,  worthy  of 
the  simple  annals  of  the  Scotch  peasantry.  We  are  not 
here  to  praise  his  eloquence,  much  less  describe  it. 
We  know  that  it  is  not  lost  to  the  world,  but  is 
already  coursing  upon  a  thousand  precious-laden  breezes  ; 
has  already  swept  over  the  entire  land,  and  has  touched 
the  hearts  and  lips,  and  fired  the  unconquerable  souls 
of  a  thousand  black  Douglasses,  not  so  eminent,  per 
haps,  as  their  great  exemplar,  but  resolved,  from  the 
rapt  fervor  of  his  latest  exhortation  —  to  take  up  his 
unfinished  work  ;  the  vindication  of  the  complete, 
indefeasible,  unextinguishable  citizenship  of  the  American 
negro,  at  this  present  moment  in  greater  jeopardy 
than  it  was  even  before  Bull  Run. 

It  is  customary  to  speak  of  Mr.  DOUGLASS  as  a 
great  negro,  and  to  dismiss  the  race  to  oblivion,  by 
scanty  accorded  and  only  partial  justice  even  to  him. 
He  was  a  great  man  judged  by  any  standard,  of  any 


82  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

race,  at  any  time,  in  this  world's  history.  Like  his 
prototype,  Alexandre  Dumas,  pere,  whom  he  resembled 
only  in  genius,  he  will  rank  among  Nordau's  great 
men  of  the  world.  Like  the  great  Irish  agitator, 
O'Connell,  whom  he  so  much  resembled  in  many 
respects,  he  was  at  once  typical  of  the  highest  char 
acteristics  of  the  races  wrhose  mingled  blood  flowed 
through  his  veins. 

He  was  truly,  as  no  white  man  could  be,  the  typical, 
composite  American,  for  in  his  veins  there  flowed, 
without  a  doubt,  the  negro,  the  indian,  the  white 
strain  of  stock,  and  I  always  suspected  a  touch  of 
that  Berber  blood  whose  fire  and  genius  in  every  south 
ern  State  has  helped  to  save  the  native  African  from 
the  extreme  cruelty  of  the  Anglo-Saxon. 

There  was  a  world  of  deep  philosophy  in  a  remark 
made  by  him  when  he  was  unjustly  and  unduly  criti 
cised  by  some  negroes,  "  I  am  not  a  negro ;  look  at 
my  features ;  look  at  my  hair." 

He  was  not,  it  is  true,  a  pure  negro  in  blood ;  such 
was  the  ethnological  fact ;  that,  however,  was  not 
necessary  either  to  assert  his  full  claim  to  recognition 
as  a  man  and  an  American  citizen,  nor  could  the  fact 
disparage  his  intellect,  or  lessen  the  deep  interest  he 
always  felt  in  his  mother's  race.  Had  she  not  been 
the  guiding  star  of  his  childhood,  though  seen  only  at 
night,  like  the  fabric  of  a  vision  ?  Did  there  not  always 
sing  in  his  soul  the  mystical  sounds  crooned  to  him 
in  the  lonely  watches,  —  words  the  childish  mind  could 
not  comprehend,  which,  perhaps,  his  maturer  manhood 
even  never  wholly  fathomed. 


PERSONAL    REMINISCENCES.  83 

He  resented  the  idea  that  an  unknown  father  should 
lay  claim  to  his  intellect,  and  we  know  to-day,  thanks 
to  heredity  and  science,  that  in  intellect  and  in  feel 
ing,  in  lofty  aspiration,  in  uncommon  good-sense,  in 
wondrous  depths  of  humor,  he  was  a  true  mother- 
child. 

Did  he  know  much  of  grief  in  all  that  strange, 
eventful  life  ?  Many  think  not,  because  he  did  not 
wear  it  on  his  sleeve.  The  devoted  wife  of  his  early 
days,  faithful  companion,  suggester  and  companion  of 
his  flight,  who  combined,  as  some  of  us  know,  the 
tenderest  qualities  of  wife,  mother,  and  friend,  left  at 
her  death  a  void  in  the  heart  of  her  husband  and 
of  every  friend  who  knew  her  intimately. 

Mr.  DOUGLASS  mourned  her  as  the  husband  mourns 
the  true  wife,  as  the  wife  mourns  the  devoted  husband  ; 
the  pain  that  numbs  and  deadens,  from  which  we  rise 
to  life,  with  a  slower  step  and  a  lessened  ardor ;  but 
the  greatest  grief  of  Mr.  DOUGLASS'  life,  known  only 
to  his  most  intimate  friends,  indeed  sacredly  guarded 
as  a  vestal  fire  from  the  profane,  came  to  him  earlier 
in  life  —  it  was  the  loss  of  his  favorite  daughter, 
Annie,  the  apple  of  his  eye,  the  one  clinging  plant,  of 
that  middle-life,  his  own  image  in  the  opposite  sex;  the 
transmission  and  the  cross,  which  perpetuates  genius, 
the  heart  which,  above  all  others,  he  ever  knew,  re 
sponded  most  completely  to  every  note  and  tone  of  his 
own  soul's  harmony. 

For  years  no  one  dared  to  mention  her  to  him,  except 
when  he  was  alone  ;  while  the  souvenirs  of  her  precocity, 
her  extreme  sensibility,  and  her  mobile  and  radiant 


84  MEMORIAL  OF  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS. 

nature,  were  a  perennial  source  of  comfort  at  times  of 
political  distrust,  of  personal  misrepresentation,  of  mis 
understanding. 

In  the  summer  of  1868  he  invited  me,  a  college 
student,  to  visit  him  at  his  home  in  Rochester,  in 
the  old  house  well  remembered  by  so  many  of 
his  intimate  friends  of  that  day.  Here  with  his  violin, 
his  books,  and  collection  of  English  scenes  and  memen 
toes,  a  new  side  of  his  nature  was  revealed,  a  side  ever 
ready  to  swing  wide  its  portal,  but  always  requiring 
a  sympathetic  touch  to  move  the  springs.  It  was  on 
this  visit  I  saw  the  relics  of  the  daughter  gone,  and 
there  learned  the  wondrous  hold  she  had  upon  his 
whole  being. 

He  had  fled  to  England,  on  the  opening  of  the 
John  Brown  investigation,  which  meant  evidently  hang 
ing  for  such  as  were  proved  cognizant  of  the  hero's 
plans.  Ordinarily,  she  would  have  accompanied  her 
father ;  but  his  safety  demanded  prudence.  She  liter 
ally  pined  away  with  grief  during  his  absence,  and  the 
uncertainty  of  its  duration,  never  having  been  sepa 
rated  from  him  before ;  and  she  died  at  the  budding 
of  womanhood,  with  a  plaintive  call  for  the  absent 
father  last  on  her  lips. 

Honors  came,  many  and  greater  than  his  fondest 
dreams  could  have  imagined ;  brighter  even  than  the 
boyish  visions  by  the  shores  of  the  Chesapeake  when 
the  "slave-ships"  sailed  by;  and  the  bright  clouds 
illumined  by  gorgeous,  dazzling  sunlight  used  to  conjure 
up  visions  worthy  of  the  Apocalypse.  No  honor,  how 
ever,  came  too  high  nor  undeserved ;  none  that  did  not 


PERSONAL  REMINISCENCES.  85 

have  the  bitter  dreg  of  American  prejudice  thrown  in 
to  poison  the  cup ;  but  neither  the  honors  nor  the  dregs 
of  the  chalice  ever  were  able  to  make  him  forget  the 
one  hand  nor  gave  so  lasting  a  pang  as  this  worst  grief. 

It  has  been  a  matter  of  surprise  to  some  persons  that 
a  man  of  Mr.  DOUGLASS'  physique  and  moral  courage 
should  have  had,  as  he  freely  confessed,  such  a  dread, 
daily,  hourly,  on  his  escape  from  bondage,  of  capture ;  that 
he  should  have  fled  to  England,  alarmed  and  dreading  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law.  The  explanation  has  ever  seemed 
to  me  simple,  not  from  any  remark  dropped  from  him, 
but  rather  from  an  analysis  of  his  peculiarly  remarkable 
organization.  He  was  essentially  a  sensitive,  in  spite  of 
his  sturdy,  physical  organization.  In  truth,  a  more  highly 
developed  sensitive,  from  the  very  combination  of  massive 
frame  and  delicacy  of  mind.  He  should  have  been  able, 
as  he  was,  to  strike  the  lowest  and  the  highest  notes, 
and  be  alive  to  the  varied  strokes  in  turn,  roused  or 
depressed  to  an  extent  which  less  acutely  organized 
beings  cannot  comprehend. 

The  horrible  thought  and  fact  of  slavery  had  become  so 
abhorrent  to  him,  so  cumulative  and  harrowing  in  the  quick 
tense  vibrations  of  his  thought,  that  they  certainly  would 
have  beat  higher  and  higher,  and  in  time  overbalanced 
his  reason,  had  the  dread  been  permitted  to  remain,  or 
had  the  cloud  not  been  lifted. 

He  was  essentially  a  man  of  peace,  and  naturally  took 
to  "  non-resistance,"  the  peaceful  method  of  agitation  of 
the  Society  of  Friends,  whose  interest  in  him  never  al 
lowed  its  Light  to  grow  dim,  and  to  whom  he  owed 
much  that  is  unrecorded. 


86  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

At  the  convention  of  1843  he  was  the  consistent 
opponent  of  the  fiery  Garnet  and  others,  advising  the 
torch  and  physical  resistance.  We  know  now  he  never 
favored  Brown's  plan  as  developed,  and  his  opposition, 
as  early  as  1843,  and  as  late  as  1859,  yes,  and  1893, 
when  plans  were  set  on  foot  to  apply  the  lex  talionis  in 
lynching  matters,  his  arguments,  precedents,  and  bound 
less  faith,  in  all  probability,  prevented  much  bloodshed. 

This  aversion  to  force,  and  horror  of  even  abstract 
oppression,  this  frenzy  of  speech  at  all  species  of  wrong, 
arose,  as  can  easily  be  imagined,  from  a  nature  capable 
of  the  widest  outbursts  of  feeling,  the  outcome  of  which 
in  more  peaceful  times  would  have  been  in  the  highest 
degree  poetic. 

I  have  often  conjectured  whether  or  not  his  thought 
ever  took  on  this  form;  that  the  potency  was  there, 
is  seen  in  his  speeches  and  in  a  venture  of  his,  which 
I  only  discovered  by  chance,  a  story,  "  Madison  Wash 
ington,"  written  with  all  the  gracefulness  of  his  best 
estate,  a  story  needing  only  time  and  elaboration  to 
have  made  it  a  study  of  negro  character  worthy  of  later 
times  and  his  maturer  years. 

He  never  referred  to  it  in  my  hearing ;  perhaps  he 
was  ashamed  of  this  youthful  venture.  He  need  not 
have  discarded  this  early  literary  offspring,  for  in  plot, 
conception,  and  delineation  it  was  worthy  of  its  author, 
and  the  theme. 

Mr.  DOUGLASS  has  always  been  spoken  of  as  the 
natural,  "  self-made "  orator ;  but  with  me  there  has 
always  been  present,  in  everything  that  Mr.  DOUGLASS 
wrote,  the  unconscious  trace,  an  odor  of  the  lam}),  one 


PERSONAL    REMINISCENCES.  87 

always  well  filled,  well  trimmed  too,  and  kept  brightly 
burning.  I  find  this  as  conspicuous  in  his  lectures 
on  American  slavery  (Buffalo,  1851)  as  in  the  Lessons 
of  the  Hour  (A.  M.  E.  "Church  Review,"  July,  1894). 
He  seemed  to  have  the  grand  Miltonic  scorn  of  coming 
into  a  contest  of  thought  unprepared ;  with  his  blade  not 
well  sharpened,  the  hilt  untried,  and  the  point  not  tested. 
I  dare  assert,  judged  by  any  papers  of  eminent  American 
statesmen,  writers,  or  even  lawyers,  arguing  from  prece 
dent,  case,  or  analogy,  Mr.  DOUGLASS  will  be  found  never 
to  have  been  careless  in  the  form  of  his  thought,  never 
negligent  in  his  method,  and  almost  invariably  accurate 
and  even  elegant  in  choice  and  application  of  words ; 
while  some  of  his  aphorisms  are  worthy  of  Victor  Hugo 
himself,  and  will  live  in  American  literature.  "  One, 
with  God,  is  a  majority;"  "The  Republican  party 
is  the  ship,  all  outside  is  the  sea ;  "  "In  American 
law  the  slave  has  no  wife,  no  children,  no  country,  no 
home ; "  "  Slavery  is  always  slavery  ;  always  the  same 
foul,  haggard,  damning  scourge;"  "There  comes  no  voice 
from  the  enslaved ; "  "  The  Irishman  is  poor,  but  he  is 
not  a  slave;"  "I  began  to  pray  with  my  legs;"  "When 
men  prefer  the  crooked  to  the  straight  road,  it  is  not 
because  the  one  is  crooked  and  the  other  is  straight, 
but  because  of  some  fancied  advantage  apart  from  the 
character  of  the  roads  themselves;"  "Mankind  seems 
fated  to  find  Truth  only  through  a  howling  wilderness  of 
Error.  The  wonder  is  less  that  they  have  gone  wrong, 
than  that  they  have  gone  right  at  all.  On  first  view, 
Error  would  seem  to  have  everything  its  own  way, 
opening  wide  its  thousand  gates  against  the  single  one 


88  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

of  Truth.  .  .  .  By  some  means  or  other,  whatever 
may  be  said  in  favor  of  the  doctrine  of  innate  depravity, 
men  do  and  will  in  the  end  prefer  truth  to  error,  right 
to  wrong." 

If  my  claim  is  well  founded,  it  should  dispose  of  the 
semi-disparagement  which  makes  mere  oratorical  emotion 
the  greatest  strength,  and  fails  to  estimate  the  greater 
glory  which  comes  from  a  trained  intellect  wielding 
the  mightiest  of  weapons. 

Those  who  only  knew  Mr.  DOUGLASS  as  the  bitter 
opponent  of  slavery,  the  picturesque  and  typical  negro, 
Marshal  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  Recorder  of  Deeds, 
and  diplomat,  saw  only  some  milder  phases  of  his 
varied  nature.  Once,  amid  the  Blue  Ridge  of  Virginia, 
we  were  invited  to  address  an  emancipation  celebration 
of  colored  people,  gathered  from  several  counties.  It 
was  a  characteristic  scene  amid  the  heights  of  Virginia, 
-rural,  jovial,  eminently  Southern  in  its  types  and 
scenes,  —  all  that  goes  to  make  up  the  negro's  per 
sonality,  not  omitting  his  proverbial  good  nature  and 
superabundant  vitality. 

Mr.  DOUGLASS  was  not  entirely  at  ease  on  this  occa 
sion  ;  his  mind  was  in  the  mountains  and  far  away,  so 
he  turned  me  in,  as  he  said,  "to  do  the  hard  work."  By 
the  time  I  had  finished  he  was  strolling  leisurely,  viewing 
the  romantic  scene,  finding  his  way  at  last  over  the 
ground  to  a  carriage  the  occupants  of  which  had  beck 
oned  to  him.  They  proved  to  be  old  friends :  one,  the 
patriarch,  a  Pennsylvania  Quaker,  who  had  known  him 
years  before.  We  were  invited  to  the  ancient  homestead, 
—  the  earliest  drift  southward  of  the  Penn  stock,  - 


PERSONAL    REMINISCENCES.  81) 

dating  back  to  the  seventeenth  century,  and  there  for 
the  first  time  in  years  I  saw  Mr.  DOUGLASS  at  his  best 
estate,  at  once  entertainer  and  entertained,  witty,  learned, 
aphoristic,  epigrammatic,  bubbling  over  with  brilliant 
sayings,  quotations ;  radiantly  happy  among  cultivated, 
appreciative  auditors  ;  felicitous  in  expression,  and 
literally  flashing  with  quaint,  humorous,  and  serious 
reminiscences,  just  as  some  brown  Brahmin  shines  in 
cultivated  Boston  or  New  York  society.  And  so  it  was 
ever  with  him.  His  oratory  was  never  conversational, 
except  in  tone,  for  it  was  the  oratory  of  his  youth ; 
but  his  conversation,  when  at  his  best,  was  the  per 
fection  of  speech  of  the  true  orator.  And  yet  this 
man,  whom  the  impartial  critic  will  rank  among  the 
five  truly  great  men  of  this  country,  could  say  of 
himself : 

"  More  than  twenty  years  of  my  life  were  consumed 
in  a  state  of  slavery.  My  childhood  was  environed 
by  the  baneful  peculiarities  of  the  slave  system.  I 
grew  up  to  manhood  in  the  presence  of  this  hydra- 
headed  monster,  not  as  a  master,  not  as  an  idle  spec 
tator,  not  as  a  guest  of  the  slave-holder,  but  as  a 
slave,  eating  the  bread  and  drinking  the  cup  of  slavery 
with  the  most  degraded  of  my  brother  bondmen,  and 
sharing  with  them  all  the  painful  conditions  of  their 
wretched  lot." 

And  this  American  slave,  whose  freedom  was  ransomed 
with  a  price ;  who  attained  next  to  the  highest  honors 
of  his  race ;  the  trusted  friend  of  Abraham  Lincoln ;  the 
friend,  also,  of  General  Grant;  orator,  office-holder,  states 
man,  and  diplomat,  —  never  became  in  sober  truth  a  real 


90          MEMORIAL  OF  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS. 

citizen  of  the  United  States,  so  far  as  the  rights,  the 
"  privileges,"  so  far  as  locomotion  was  concerned ;  not 
near  so  much  a  true  citizen  as  the  slave  of  Epaphro- 
ditus,  to  whom  Judge  Tourge'e  has  referred,  was  in  the 
days  of  heathen  Rome. 


FINAL    PROCEEDINGS 


FINAL    PROCEEDINGS. 


ON  the  sixteenth  of  January,  1896,  Councilman  STANLEY 
RUFFIN  introduced  the  following  resolutions  at  the  meeting  of 
the  Common  Council,  and  they  were  adopted  by  a  unani 
mous  vote  ;  namely  : 

Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  the  City  Council  be 
hereby  expressed  to  the  Hon.  ALBION  W.  TOURGEE 
for  the  eloquent  oration  delivered  by  him  at  the  memo 
rial  services  in  honor  of  the  late  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS, 
held  under  the  auspices  of  the  city  at  Faneuil  Hall, 
December  20,  1895. 

Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  the  City  Council  be 
hereby  expressed  to  RICHARD  T.  GREENER,  Esq.,  for  the 
address  delivered  by  him  at  the  memorial  services  in 
honor  of  the  late  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS,  at  Faneuil 
Hall,  December  20,  1895. 

Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  the  City  Council  be 
hereby  expressed  to  the  Rev.  D.  P.  ROBERTS  for  offi 
ciating  as  chaplain  at  the  memorial  services  in  honor 
of  the  late  FREDERICK  DOUGLASS,  held  by  the  city  in 
Faneuil  Hall,  December  20,  1895. 


94  MEMORIAL    OF    FREDERICK    DOUGLASS. 

The  Board  of  Aldermen  concurred  with  the  Common  Coun 
cil  in  the  adoption  of  the  resolutions,  at  their  meeting, 
January  the  twentieth,  and  the  resolutions  were  approved  by 
the  Mayor  on  the  twenty-second  of  January,  1896. 


i:  71 


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